About DTIC
DTIC's mission is " to preserve, curate, and share knowledge from DoD’s annual multi-billion dollar investment in science and technology, multiplying the value and accelerating capability to the warfighter"
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) has served the information needs of the defense community for more than 75 years.
As a Department of Defense (DoD) Field Activity, DTIC operates under the leadership of the Secretary of Defense and reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering USD(R&E). DTIC supports the USD(R&E)’s efforts to mitigate new and emerging threat capabilities, enable affordable or extended capabilities in existing military systems, and develop technology surprise through engineering by:
- Preserving and disseminating the research that led to the technologies our warfighters use today;
- Delivering the tools and collections that empower the research and engineering enterprise to accelerate the development of technologies that will help maintain our nation's technical superiority;
- Stimulating innovation by providing access to DoD-funded research and digital data to the public and industry; and
- Maximizing the value of each dollar the DoD spends through the analysis of funding, work-in-progress, and Independent Research and Development (IR&D) data to identify gaps, challenges and way forward.
These areas of responsibility support USD(R&E) in their efforts to mitigate new and emerging threat capabilities, enable affordable new or extended capabilities in existing military systems, and develop technology surprise through science and engineering.
More than 50 percent of the research records in DTIC’s collection are available through the R&E Gateway — an access-controlled knowledge management repository available to authorized DoD personnel, defense contractors, federal government personnel, government contractors, and select academic institutions. The R&E Gateway requires Common Access Card (CAC) login or registration. Access to unclassified, unlimited information, including many full-text, downloadable documents are available to the general public through this website.
DTIC also manages the Information Analysis Centers which provide essential technical analysis and data support to a diverse customer base that spans the Combatant Commands (CCMDs), the Office of the Secretary of Defense, defense agencies, and the military services. The IACs actively partner and collaborate with defense research and engineering focus groups and communities of interest in cyber, homeland defense and defense systems. They are staffed with scientists, engineers and information specialists who provide research and analysis to customers with diverse, complex and challenging requirements.
Established in June 1945 as the Air Documents Research Center (ADRC), the agency’s original mission was to collect German air documents. The documents collected were divided into three categories: those that would assist the war in the Pacific theater, those of immediate intelligence interest to the United States or British forces, and those of interest for future research.
In 1945, the ADRC relocated its operations in London, United Kingdom to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) in Dayton, Ohio where it was renamed Air Documents Division (ADD). The ADD staff cataloged captured documents and translated a small number of reports deemed as high-priority research.
In 1948, the secretaries of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force reorganized ADD into the Central Air Documents Office (CADO), broadened its mission to include collecting, processing and disseminating information for use within military regulations. The organization has since evolved—in name and mission—to become the central resource for DoD- and government-funded scientific, technical, engineering and business related information for the DoD community.
1945 – The U.S. Army Air Corps, the U.S. Navy and the British Air Ministry establish the Air Documents Research Center (ADRC) in London. ADRC becomes the Air Document Division (ADD) of the Intelligence (T-2) Department of the Headquarters, Air Technical Services, Army Air Force at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio.
1948 – ADD becomes the Central Air Documents Office (CADO) where scientific and technical reports are collected, processed, and distributed.
1951 - The Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA) is established.
1952 - CADO is renamed ASTIA. ASTIA takes over CADO’s operations for document collection.
1958 - ASTIA moves from Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio to Arlington Hall Station, in Arlington, Virginia.
1963 - ASTIA is renamed the Defense Documentation Center for Science and Technical Information (DDC), becomes a DoD Field Activity of the Defense Supply Agency (DSA) and moves to Cameron Station, in Alexandria, Virginia.
1972 - The Defense Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Online System (DROLS) becomes operational.
1979 - DDC changes its name officially to the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).
1980 - DoD Information Analysis Center (IAC) program is added to DTIC's mission.
1983 - DTIC assumes responsibility for the Manpower and Training Research Information System (MATRIS).
1991 - DTIC is transferred from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) (formerly DSA) to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions in order to expand its mission in fulfilling the needs of the broader acquisition community.
1994 - DTIC begins offering products and services via the Internet.
1995 - DTIC moves to its current location in the Andrew T. McNamara Headquarters Complex, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
1997 - Defense Reform Initiative transfers oversight of DTIC to the Director, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).
1998 - DTIC is transferred from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense to DISA.
2003 - DTIC initiates Private STINET (Scientific and Technical Information Network).
2004 - DTIC is established as a DoD Field Activity and is realigned under the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD (AT&L)), reporting to the Director, Defense Research & Engineering (DDR&E).
2008 - DTIC Online is launched to offer DTIC customers a comprehensive website to search and access DoD scientific and technical information.
2010 - DTIC celebrates 65 years of meeting the Scientific and Technical Information needs of the DoD community in support of the Warfighter.
2013 - DTIC launches the R&E Gateway and DoDTechSpace to facilitate increased collaboration within the DoD.
2014 - DTIC celebrates ten years as a DoD Field Activity. It as part of the Assistant Secretary of Defense Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) is focused on the primary goal to ensure that Warfighters today and tomorrow have superior technology capabilities for their missions.
DTIC launches the International Agreements Database (IADB) to provide access to DoD R&E-related agreements with international partners.
Completing the largest IAC re-organization in DTIC’s history, ASD(R&E) establishes the foundation for a leaner, more efficient, and more synergistic IAC system.
2015 - DTIC unveils the DoD Investment Budget Search (R-2s and P-40s) tool to provide an easier way to locate information in the DoD Investment Budgets including Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and Procurement data.
DoD Gateway to Public Access search introduces an early beta site for the Department of Defense in cooperation with the Department of Energy.
2016 – The DoD Grant Awards tool is established by DTIC on behalf of the DoD to view and download descriptive abstracts on DoD-funded grants that dates back to December 2014.
DTIC launches PubDefense, DoD's public access website which contains an initial collection of DoD-funded published journal articles and accepted manuscripts.
2017 – DTIC releases its new Strategic Plan 2017-2021, Excellence in Action.
IADB’s latest version provides a more intuitive search to over 4,100 existing and past DoD (U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, DTRA, DARPA, and the Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency (DFBA)) international armaments and cooperation agreements. DTIC integrates the Office of the Director of National Intelligence/Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (ODNI/IARPA)-funded published journal articles and accepted manuscripts into PubDefense.
2018 - DTIC publishes the inaugural issue of the Journal of DoD Research and Engineering (JDR&E), a peer-reviewed journal that provides a venue for the Department’s scientists and engineers to publish their classified and controlled unclassified research.DTIC launches the Innovators Information Repository (IIR), an access-controlled online collection of information related to technological innovations made by small, independent United States businesses.
2019 - DTIC introduces SmartTools/Tagger, a natural language auto-indexing tool which semantically analyzes a document and then outputs ranked tag listings of concepts and topics summarizing the main themes of that document.
DTIC creates the DoD Modernization Priorities space in DoDTechipedia to highlight key technology areas significant to the DoD community. It provides an overview and summary of current and relevant research news, legislation, investment data, project summaries, and graphical representations.
DTIC – in partnership with USINDOPACOM – hosts the first mobile Combatant Command (CCMD) Classified Reading Room (CRR) during the Pacific Operational Science and Technology (POST) Conference in Honolulu, HI.
DTIC launches the Horizons tool to provide a gateway to planning and research work summaries including Unified Research and Engineering Database (URED), RDT&E Budget Justifications (R2) and Procurement Budget Justifications (P40) data with congressional budget change analysis and visualizations.
DTC adds pointers to public data sets in PubDefense.
2020 - DTIC celebrates 75 years of meeting the Scientific & Technical Information needs of the DoD community in support of the Warfighter.
DoD Data Set Directory is a new collection, providing discovery for research data sets.
2021 - Horizons adds contracts and awards data from the Procurement Business Intelligence Service (PBIS).
2022 - DTIC creates a space for the14 Critical Technology Areas based on the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E) Technology Vision for an Era of Competition. Replacing the DoD Modernization Priorities.
Horizons further enhances customer experience and usability by integrating the Innovators Information Repository (IIR).
DTIC reopens the Combatant Command Reading Room.