FFRDCs
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Anonymous
They cut the wrong things at CNA. That funding line pays for the field deployed analysts (think: aboard combat ships, overseas, and in the combat zones) and also pays for Navy Quick Reaction support to Naval combat commands like PACFLT and III MEF. Those direct warfighter support items are where CNA adds the most value. |
Anonymous
So, SETAs? |
Anonymous
None of the usual SETA firms put people in harm's way. Many of those billets are in harm's way, so no. And a random SETA would not be able to reach back to get the depth of Navy-specific knowledge that CNA has in-house - to get the answers a commander at sea or in the field can get from CNA. Some of the OTHER work CNA does might be handled with SETAs, maybe, but this particular slice could not be done successfully that way. |
Anonymous
More fundamentally than this… no, CNA field people just don’t do SETA-type work. |
Anonymous
What kind of non-SETA work does CNA do? |
Anonymous
It's an odd framing of the question. "This company that does A, B, and C -- what kind of non-D work do they do?" Some FFRDCs, like Mitre and Aerospace, do systems engineering, including via SETA support. Studies and analysis FFRDCs do not. On-site support by a technically-inclined person does not in general equal SETA. |
Anonymous
Whatever work CNA does today won't exist in a few months because their funding is about to get cut. |
Anonymous
If that is true, then the main adverse impact will be on the deployed warfighter . CNA has fundamental differences from orgs like Mitre or even IDA and Rand. |
Anonymous
Some odd things about that. First, the person never figured out that UARCs exist — or that the UARCs all do systems engineering and prototyping. Second, they did not seem to figure out that one of Mitre’s biggest competitors is JHU/APL, which is a UARC. Third, they don’t seem to understand that many UARCs are visibly larger than the smaller FFRDCs. Most UARCs have 1000+ employees, but some FFRDCs (e.g., CMU/SEi, CNA) are below 500 employees, Also, they did not figure out that the only way to really shrink the size of the overall FFRDC+UARC community is to lower the per-FFRDC/per-UARC ceiling on the total aggregate funding they can receive each FY. Cutting the handful of line items in the budget has much less impact than cutting the ceiling would have, because the vast majority of FFRDC/UARC work is done on project funds that gets sent via no-bid task orders using the applicable FFRDC/UARC prime contract. Ceilings actually went UP this year, FY 25, as did the authorized “exclusions from ceiling”, meaning more work is going to FFRDCs and more is going to UARCs. Maybe the real story is that all these FFRDC changes and cuts are just for show, just marketing, and changing the landscape is not the real goal? |