The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is a private, nonprofit corporation headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. IDA's mission is to answer the most challenging U.S. security and science policy questions with objective analysis leveraging extraordinary scientific, technical and analytic expertise.
IDA manages three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs):
IDA Systems and Analyses Center (SAC). The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) sponsors SAC--the first and largest FFRDC IDA manages. Collocated with the IDA corporate headquarters in Alexandria, VA, SAC traces its roots back to 1956, when IDA was formed. The length of the association between IDA and OSD speaks to the mutual trust inherent to the relationship.
IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI). The National Science Foundation sponsor STPI. Located in Washington, D.C., STPI primarily supports the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. This FFRDC's focus is on supporting policy makers with objective analyses on matters of scientific and technological importance to the government.
IDA Center for Communications and Computing. The National Security Agency sponsors the Center for Communications and Computing, which comprises three centers located in Princeton, New Jersey (established in 1959); Bowie, Maryland (established in 1985); and LaJolla, California (established in 1989). This IDA FFRDC focuses on development of innovative technology solutions to complicated mathematical and computational problems in cryptology, which includes both foreign signals intelligence and protecting the communications of the U.S. Government.
Sponsors rely on IDA's FFRDCs for dispassionate, fact-based, and scientifically rigorous research and advice performed in a research environment free of commercial or shareholder interests where objectivity and the public interest are foremost.