The primary purpose of PME is to develop military personnel, throughout their careers, for the intellectual demands of complex contingencies and major conflicts. The military services provide PME at their respective staff and war colleges. Each service educates service members in their core competencies according to service needs. Air Force colleges, for example, primarily teach air and space warfare. Similarly, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps colleges focus on land, maritime, and expeditionary warfare, respectively. DOD depends on the services’ PME institutions to develop personnel with these service-specific skills. However, the JPME program places emphasis on preparing leaders to conduct operations as a coherently joint force in complex operating environments. Following the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act (the Act) in 1986, DOD developed JPME as a subset of learning within the PME program, to comply with the “joint” requirements outlined in the Act and subsequent legislation. Currently, JPME is provided at multiple sites across the country, including the services’ staff and war colleges and NDU. Together, PME and JPME, prepare service members in successive stages throughout their careers to engage intellectual challenges appropriate to increases in their ranks and responsibilities. See figure 1 for a map of service and joint colleges and universities where JPME is provided. The military services are primarily responsible for overseeing PME at their respective staff and war colleges. As part of their oversight efforts, the military services’ leader-development efforts are included in education programs. For example, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command serves as the executive agent for ensuring leader development is integrated into PME courses at the Army War College and the Army Command and Staff College. In contrast, JPME is overseen by the Joint Staff. The Joint Staff is responsible for developing the learning objectives for JPME and for accrediting the service staff and war colleges and the joint institutions to provide JPME coursework. The Joint Staff also has oversight responsibility of NDU. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is statutorily responsible for formulating policies for coordinating the military education and training of members of the armed forces.Military Education Coordination Council, which consists of representatives from the Joint Staff, the service and joint colleges and universities, and other JPME-accredited institutions, serves as an advisory body to the Joint Staff on joint education issues. The purpose of the council is to address key educational issues of interest to the joint educational community, promote cooperation and collaboration among the colleges and universities certified to grant JPME degrees, and coordinate joint education initiatives. The Joint Staff conducts periodic assessments of the three statutorily mandated levels of officer JPME to ensure that the curricula being taught at service staff and war colleges and the joint institutions meet the prescribed joint educational requirements outlined in the Officer Professional Military Education Policy. JPME program includes curriculum components that JPME colleges and universities should follow to develop the knowledge, analytical skills, perspectives, and values that are essential for U.S. servicemembers to function effectively in joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational operations. Moreover, Enclosure A of the policy states that senior officer studies at JPME-degree-granting colleges and universities should emphasize analysis, foster critical examination, and provide progressively broader educational experiences. CJCSI 1800.01D. subject-matter experts in their field of study. Table 1 provides a list of the 20 research institutions that are associated with JPME colleges and universities and are within the scope of our review. Other DOD-funded organizations also conduct studies and analysis research. For example: Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, such as the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Defense Analyses, maintain capabilities to conduct research in core competencies in areas of importance to DOD, such as analysis, acquisition support, and research and development. According to a May 2011 memorandum from the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, the mission of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers is to provide DOD with unique capabilities in many areas where the government cannot attract and retain personnel in sufficient depth and numbers. The memorandum further explains that Federally Funded Research and Development Centers are a vital component of the department’s overall acquisition workforce because they operate in the public interest, free from organizational conflicts of interest. Service-affiliated organizations, such as the Naval Postgraduate School and the Center for Army Analysis, provide research products to their parent services to help with decision making and analysis on critical issues facing the service. DOD’s Regional Centers for Security Studies support DOD’s objective to build the defense capacity of partner nations. In our prior work, we reported that the Regional Centers’ activities include education, exchanges, research, and information sharing. For example, the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies conducts research on European security issues relevant to U.S. interests. JPME research institutions receive funding through their colleges and universities and other departmental offices for their operations, which include research activities. Specifically, most JPME colleges and universities receive direct funding from their respective military service to fund their PME and JPME programs, and some of those resources are used to fund their JPME research institutions. For example, the Naval War College receives operation and maintenance and military personnel funding from the Department of the Navy as well as funds in the form of monetary gifts from the Naval War College Foundation. In turn, the college allocates some of those resources to fund its associated research institutions, such as the China Maritime Studies Institute. However, NDU receives operation and maintenance funding from defense-wide appropriations for its JPME program and research institutions. With these funds, JPME research institutions can support PME and JPME programs as well as the research needs of those entities that provide their funding. For example, the Air University’s Center for Strategy and Technology produces research that is responding to key questions and topics of interest posed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Additionally, some JPME research institutions receive funding on a reimbursable basis from other departmental offices, such as the directorates within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the military services. These offices receive their own funding, such as research, development, test, and evaluation funds and operation and maintenance funds, which may be used in part to fund annual requirements for research projects. To fulfill these annual research requirements, funding may be allocated to JPME research institutions, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, or think tanksconduct individual research projects in support of those offices’ annual research requirements. For example, NDU’s research institutions have received funding from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to study and build subject-matter expertise on issues related to Afghanistan and Pakistan. DOD also funds science and technology–related research. According to testimony in April 2013 by Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Defense Research & Engineering, science and technology research is funded to mitigate new or emerging capabilities that could degrade U.S. capabilities, enable new or extended capabilities in existing military systems, and develop new concepts and technologies through science and engineering applications to military problems. Science and technology research is conducted under the auspices of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. According to DOD guidance, this office develops the strategies and supporting plans for utilizing technology to respond to DOD needs and ensures U.S. technological superiority. The office is the executive secretary for DOD’s Research and Engineering Executive Committee. This committee brings together leadership from the DOD components that have science and technology research investments for the purpose of strengthening coordination and enhancing the efficiency of research and engineering investments in areas that cannot be addressed adequately by any single component. Science and technology research comprises basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development.research institutions do not conduct science and technology research. Science and technology research is generally conducted by DOD laboratories associated with the military services, such as the Army Research Laboratory, and some Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, among other organizations. JPME research institutions, particularly at NDU, experienced considerable growth in number, funding, and size in terms of staffing levels from fiscal year 2007 through fiscal year 2011 but have declined over the past 2 years. Several factors contributed to JPME research institution growth, including increases in reimbursable funding from outside offices sponsoring JPME research, the creation of new research institutions, and the realignment of institutions at some JPME colleges and universities. While a variety of factors contributed to the expansion of JPME research institutions, it has primarily been department-wide budget reductions that contributed to their decreases in number, funding, and size since 2011. JPME research institutions, particularly at NDU, experienced considerable growth in number, funding, and size in terms of staffing levels from fiscal year 2007 through fiscal year 2011, but have declined over the past 2 years. The following sections discuss overall trends in the number of research institutions at JPME colleges and universities from fiscal year 2007 through fiscal year 2013, as well as overall trends in funding and staffing levels for this same period. Appendix II provides more-detailed information for each of the 20 JPME research institutions from fiscal year 2004 through fiscal year 2013, as available. From 2007 through 2011, the number of JPME research institutions grew from 14 to 20. During this period, the number of research institutions at NDU increased by 3. At Marine Corps University and Air University, the number of research institutions increased by 2 and 1, respectively. Since 2011, however, the number of research institutions has slightly declined due to the disestablishment of the Center for Transatlantic Security Studies at NDU in 2012. Figure 2 shows the total number of JPME research institutions for fiscal years 2007 through 2013. Funding for research institutions at JPME colleges and universities experienced growth from fiscal year 2007 through 2011.