Mission of the Center for Edge Power

In FY04, the Department of Defense (DoD) Command and Control Research Program (CCRP; see http://www.dodccrp.org/index.html) launched a set of related initiatives designed to explore innovative behaviors, organizations, technologies and their implications for command and control (C2). One of these initiatives established the Virtual Edge Institute: a network of research centers located at colleges, universities and research organizations both within DoD and in the Private Sector. The first of these Centers—the Center for Edge Power—was established, through funding from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (OASD-NII), for innovative C2 research at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). Professor Mark Nissen serves as Director.

The Center for Edge Power fosters, coordinates and promotes multidisciplinary research on all elements of network-centric operations (e.g., including concepts, organization, command and control, management, doctrine, personnel, technology). The term edge derives from the recent book entitled Power to the Edge (Alberts and Hayes, 2003), which depicts new ways of organizing military forces and of enabling more powerful warfare by leveraging shared awareness and dynamic knowledge. The central premise is that power (i.e., the capability to accomplish intended actions) needs to flow from the "centers" of military organizations to their "edges." Using this metaphor, center refers principally to headquarters (e.g., where decision makers request information from the field), and edge refers principally to front lines (e.g., where combatants—at the pointy end of the metaphorical spear—fight wars). The concept clearly involves more than simply realigning organization charts and reallocating decision rights. People at the edges of organizations must: be aware of command intent; know how to accomplish tasks, activities and processes; and be able to self-organize and self-synchronize to achieve the desired effects.

Although the Center for Edge Power focuses on military organizations and problems, the edge concept applies well to business, government and other organizational domains also. For instance, the edge of a business organization is where customer interactions take place. Approaches to work, organization, management and technology other than the Edge will be conceived, investigated and refined as well. And a fluid flow of concepts and applications, both to and from public- and private-sector organizations, is envisioned to occur.

Participants in the Center for Edge Power

The Center activities are coordinated through the Naval Postgraduate School. Research associated with this Center is multidisciplinary, innovation-oriented, and reaches well beyond the NPS, involving a world-class team of faculty, postdocs and PhD students from multiple, top universities around the world. Key participants are listed below.

Naval Postgraduate School Participants

• Frank Barrett, PhD, School of Business & Public Policy
• John Dillard, Colonel (Ret), School of Business & Public Policy
• Thomas Lucas, PhD, School of Operational & Information Sciences
• Mark Nissen, PhD, Center for Edge Power/School of Operational & Information Sciences
• Edward Powley, PhD, School of Business & Public Policy
• Susan Sanchez, PhD, School of Operational & Information Sciences

Other University Participants

• Academia Militar
  Fernando Freire, Colonel, Operational Research/Decision Management and Theory
  Marco Manso, MSE, Edisoft Corporation

• George Mason University
  M. Layne Kalbfleisch, PhD, KIDLab

• Hoover Institution
  Katya Drozdova, PhD, Research Associate

• Johns Hopkins University
  Jay Liebowitz, PhD, Carey Business School

• Loyalist College
  Ken Hudson, Virtual World Design Centre

• Parity Corporation
  Mary Ruddy, MSIS, ELICIT

• Purdue University
  Hong Wan, PhD, School of Industrial Engineering

• Referentia Corporation
  Adam Forsyth, PhD, Technical Staff

• Stanford University
  Raymond Levitt, PhD, School of Civil & Environmental Engineering
  Ryan Orr, PhD, Center for Research on Global Projects
  Marc Ramsey, Center for Research on Global Projects
  W. Richard Scott, PhD, Department of Sociology (Emeritus)

• Universität der Bundeswehr München
  Petra Eggenhofer, PhD, Institute of Technology of Intelligent Systems
  Reiner Huber, PhD, Institute of Technology of Intelligent Systems (Emeritus)

• University of California at Irvine
  Walt Scacchi, PhD, Institute for Software Research

• University of Kentucky
  Clyde Holsapple, PhD, School of Management

• University of Southern California
  Clayton Morrison, PhD, Information Sciences Institute
  Yan Jin, PhD, School of Engineering

• University of Washington
  Kevin Desouza, PhD, School of Information
  Sumit Roy, PhD, School of Engineering

• US Army Research Laboratory
  Elizabeth Bowman
  Kevin Chan, PhD

• US Office of the Secretary of Defense
  David Alberts, PhD, Networks & Information Integration/Command & Control Research Program
  Alenka Brown, PhD, Networks & Information Integration/Defense Threat Reduction Agency