Indiana Research Consortium
The Indiana Research Consortium (IRC) unites Indiana’s leading research institutions to advance defense technologies and the broader research and development landscape.
A powerhouse regional consortium
The consortium’s collective expertise advances defense technologies and positions Indiana as a national leader in defense research, promoting economic growth and attracting top talent and industries to the region.
Advancing defense technologies
The three IRC universities have forged a regional defense research engine aimed at addressing the nation’s most critical high-technology defense research challenges.
Driving innovation and advancement
IRC universities are home to world-leading graduate engineering and science programs advancing fundamental principles and real-world translational practices for DoD.
Committed to collaboration
The IRC universities bring their strengths to bear on the highest priority national security research challenges.
Proven workforce development
IRC universities offer customized curricula and focused research experiences that align with the DoD’s top priorities.
Secure microelectronics
The IRC universities, in collaboration with NSWC Crane and Westgate microelectronics companies, will create a unique and pioneering “Consortium for Secure Microelectronics” to accelerate the adoption of technologies initially developed for commercial microelectronics to DoD-hardened systems operating in extreme environments. The key objective is to shorten the existing Commercial-to-Defense time of a decade or more to 2-3 years or less.
Hypersonics
The IRC universities, in conjunction with NSWC Crane, propose to rapidly develop a series of hypersonic reference vehicle system designs with full government purpose rights in support of national security imperatives. Our approach joins all four organizations into a collaborative research environment, with multiple design teams producing a design with common avionics, decoupled from propulsion, that allows for scaling to meet expanded mission or platform requirements while considering affordability and producibility.
Energetics
A robust partnership between NSWC Crane and the three IRC universities will enable the development of critical energetic materials necessary for U.S. defense superiority. The consortium will develop superior new technologies in traditional and hypersonic applications. Establishing a lab-scale pilot will generate important process data to optimize pilot- and full-scale manufacturing to rapidly field our research advances.
Cyber-physical resiliency
In close collaboration with NSWC Crane, the IRC universities propose to develop an integrated framework for vetting and hardening naval cyber-physical systems for security and resiliency against nation
state adversaries.
Workforce development
The IRC will launch a cross-cutting workforce development model leveraging prior investments by the DoD to create a scalable workforce multi-university infrastructure that can be replicated across all technical areas.
IRC Differentiators
The collective capabilities of the IRC offer a distinct advantage in defense related research.
Advanced hypersonic capabilities
Home to the nation’s largest low-disturbance hypersonic tunnel, the Mach 6 Quiet Tunnel, the world’s first large Mach 10 Quiet Tunnel, and several other advanced hypersonic test and manufacturing facilities.
Leading-edge semiconductor facilities
Members are world leaders in high-precision semiconductor research, with state-of-the-art electrical, thermal, radiation, and optical characterization facilities.
Comprehensive energetics R&D
The IRC’s comprehensive research programs address all aspects of new energetic propellant, explosive, and pyrotechnic development.
Robust cyber-physical research
Collective cyber-physical resiliency research is unique in both identifying and addressing cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and challenges in physical and engineering domains.
Contact
Lawrence Buja,
Chief Program Development Officer, Purdue University, lbuja@purdue.edu.
research.purdue.edu
Edward Maginn,
Associate Vice President for Research, University of Notre Dame, ed@nd.edu.
research.nd.edu
Scott Bullock,
Director, National Defense R&D Relations, Indiana University, dsbulloc@iu.edu.
research.iu.edu