Island + Bridge: how transformative innovation is organized in the federal government

Careful organization of research and development (R&D) is the key to transformative innovation. Among US federal R&D programs, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), and the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) were designed to empower groups of people to tackle complex problems and realize broad societal benefits. This article offers a taxonomy of heuristics that guide the work of these three agencies, grounded in qualitative accounts of management practices. At the heart of each agency is the duality of isolation and interaction, or ‘Island’ and ‘Bridge’. The Island clusters heuristics that isolate R&D programs from the concerns of operations (as well as those of basic research). The Bridge clusters heuristics that connects R&D to broader institutional contexts. Island + Bridge is a framework for understanding a range of practices at organizations that aim to create radical change.