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The ISN's mission is complex and difficult—and it won't
be solved by cutting-edge nanoscience alone. MIT has two key
partners who share not only a passion for the ISN mission, but
responsbility for achieving it.
U.S. Army
Army research partners are vital to the ISN Mission. They collaborate on basic and applied research, provide guidance on the Soldier relevancy of ISN projects, and participate in transitioning (i.e., technological maturation and scale-up of the outcomes of ISN basic research).
The ISN is
sponsored through the U.S.
Army Research Office (ARO), located in Durham, North Carolina.
MIT scientists work closely with scientists from the ARO and
other science and technology communities within the DoD to exchange
ideas and share experience with what does and doesn't work.
The Army also keeps the ISN in contact with the customer—the
individual soldier. Several times a year, MIT researchers travel
to Army bases to observe soldiers in training, talk with them
one-on-one, and see how current equipment works. It's also a
chance to get a first-hand taste of the soldier's challenges,
by wearing bulky night-vision goggles or carrying a 40-pound
rucksack for an hour.
Industry
Industry partners are critical to the ISN Mission, helping turn innovative results of basic research into real products and scale them up for affordable manufacture in industrial quantities. Membership in the ISN
Industry Consortium is open to companies who provide a critical
core competency for ISN research and an appropriate level of
cost-sharing.
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Other Government and DoD
