Dual Use Discoveries
Help Improve Lives and
Grow Our Economy

 
Take canned food, for example. In 1795, Napoleon offered a prize of 12,000 francs (about $300,000 in today’s money) for a reliable way to preserve large amounts of food for the French army. Fifteen years later, a Paris confectioner and chef claimed the prize with a method of sealing food in glass jars and heating them to extend shelf life. Others later adapted the technique to tin cans, and the essential food technology of canning brought new convenience and food safety to kitchens around the world.

In the WWII era, duct tape was developed for sealing ammunition boxes and radar technology was refined to more accurately forecast weather and to heat food. The internet’s origins were in DoD’s creation of the arpanet network in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, and military satellite technologies were predecessors to the GPS that many of us use every day.
 

Benefits for All

Inventions like these are deemed to be dual use technologies, because they have both military and civilian applications. When technologies move from military or security to civilian use, they often bring many new benefits to civilian life, and they represent an additional return on the investment in defense and security that civilians make as taxpayers. For companies developing military technologies for civilian use, they can leverage a substantial amount of research and development that the military, in the U.S., usually the Department of Defense (DoD), has already conducted. 

At research-focused institutions like the University of Minnesota, there are many researchers and labs advancing knowledge in their field with the support of the DoD and its many sub-agencies. The breadth of that work sometimes surprises people unfamiliar with DoD; at the University of Minnesota, it encompasses fields as diverse as hypersonics modeling, advanced materials, microelectronics, data science, “forever chemical” remediation in the environment, and biomedical areas such as treatments for ovarian cancer and prostate cancer, muscle loss, brain injury, pain, congenital heart disease, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
 

Real World Impacts

University of Minnesota researchers have founded startups based on their innovations, which have been developed in part by DoD support. They include Niron Magnetics, which has received support for developing its rare-earth free magnetic materials technology from DoD and from the Department of Energy. On September 26, Niron Magnetics broke ground for a 190,000-square-foot commercial plant in Sartell in Central Minnesota that is expected to employ more than 175 people when operational. That investment and economic development are an additional benefit to dual use technology. 

Some examples of important dual use research that University researchers are pursuing include research on diagnosing and treating Traumatic Brain Injury with non-invasive, neuromodulation, development of a pharmaceutical compound for relief from pain and, potentially, addictive behavior, and evaluation of treatment that combines medication and physical therapy to help reverse the effects of severe muscle loss.

 
“The nation’s security agencies support a dynamic and growing portfolio of research initiatives at the University of Minnesota,” said Shashank Priya, vice president for research and innovation. 

“We are grateful for the opportunity to align the University’s world-class expertise with the evolving priorities of our federal partners. Each day brings new opportunities for collaboration between our scholars and the national security community.”

- Shashank Priya, Vice President for Research and Innovation

Priya noted that navigating the landscape of funding opportunities across multiple agencies can be challenging for researchers. “That’s why we established the University of Minnesota National Security Research Institute (NSRI)—to serve as a central hub for faculty, postdocs, and students, strengthening connections, providing expert guidance, and empowering our researchers to discover and translate innovation into impact in support of national defense and security.”

The NSRI is at an early stage of development, but part of the institute’s plan is to, in coordination with RIO’s Research Development Office, offer more resources and assistance to University of Minnesota faculty and staff interested in pursuing funding from DoD and other national security-related agencies.