Printed from https://fiscalreceipts.com/program/0602751D8Z/ — data as of August 12, 2026. Every figure is citation-backed; see the page online for per-number provenance.
Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research
Budget Figures
FY2026 award data is a partial year — USASpending awards are reported on a rolling basis and the fiscal year does not close until September 30. why partial FY2026 data? →
| Fiscal year | Amount |
|---|---|
| FY24 | $10.5M |
| FY25 | $11.3M |
| FY26 | $8.88M |
All series figures: R-1 TOA · PB2026
The vertical scale does not start at zero: the baseline sits just below this program’s smallest year, so a low point on this line is not a small amount. Read the shape for direction and the grid below for the figures.
● actuals (line) · ○ enacted · ◇ request — gaps are editions the program is absent from, never interpolated.
| Series | FY15 | FY16 | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actuals | $8.84M | $7.95M | $8.11M | $8.61M | $8.94M | $9.23M | $9.22M | $9.24M | $9.79M | $10.5M | ||
| Enacted | $8.81M | $8.42M | $8.96M | $9.28M | $9.58M | $9.57M | $9.57M | $10.2M | $11.2M | $11.3M | ||
| Request | $8.42M | $8.96M | $9.30M | $9.58M | $9.57M | $9.60M | $11.0M | $11.2M | $11.3M | $8.88M |
blank = series not published for this year; – = absent from that edition.
Asked vs spent: the PB2023 book requested $11.0M for FY2023; the PB2025 book reported $9.79M as actual total obligation authority — $1.24M below the request. 9.8 − 11.0 = -1.2 USD millions — the compact figures above are rounded for reading.
Program Lineage
No predecessor/successor lineage was recorded for this program element — no FY-to-FY transfer into or out of this line was stated in the ingested J-books, and none was inferred from the program structure.
Description
Mission — Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research
This program supports the Department's initiative to Build Sustainable and Long-Term Advantage. The Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) was established in 1984 as an integral part of the DoD’s initiative to identify, evaluate, and transition software engineering technologies and practices. The mission of the SEI is to provide the DoD with technical leadership and innovation through research and development to advance the practice of software engineering and technology. The SEI works across government, industry, and academia to improve the state of software engineering from the technical, acquisition, and management perspectives. The SEI engages in research and development of critical software technologies and tools and collaborates with the larger software engineering research community. It facilitates the rapid transition of software engineering technologies into practice and evaluates emerging software engineering technologies to determine their potential for improving software-intensive Department of Defense (DoD) systems. Since its inception, the SEI has helped to transform the fields of software engineering and acquisition, network security, real-time systems, software architectures, and software-engineering process management. Software is critical to meeting the Department of Defense's (DoD) increasing demand for national defense systems that are high quality, affordable, and deployed in a timely way. With growing global parity in software engineering, the DoD must maintain leadership in all aspects of software-based system development, operation, defense, and evolution to avoid strategic surprise. To assist the DoD in retaining a long-term differential advantage over potential adversaries, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research program element (PE) develops and evaluates the feasibility and practicality of software and computer science concepts, with the potential to improve future DoD systems. The research conducted by this PE directly benefits the technical domains Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cyber, and Engineered Resilient Systems.
Mission — Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research
Work conducted under this Program Element (PE) will enable resilient mission assurance in heterogeneous and contested environments through the verification and validation of system performance and architecture. The program will also assist the Department of Defense (DoD) in retaining a long-term advantage in the areas of software-intensive systems and cyber security by enhancing assurance, exploiting automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and understanding human-computer interaction. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research PE has two main research thrusts with known military applications: (1) Software Engineering, Systems Verification and Validation, and Mission Assurance (formerly Mission Assurance); and (2) Information Assurance. This area is increasingly being applied to AI and autonomous systems.
Mission — Cyber Security, Applied Research
Work conducted under this project will enable resilient mission assurance in heterogeneous and contested environments through the verification and validation of system performance and architecture. The program will also assist the DoD in retaining a long-term advantage in the area of cybersecurity by enhancing assurance, exploiting automation, and understanding human-computer interaction.
Justification
Accomplishments & Planned Programs (3)
SEI Applied Research in the Area of Software Engineering, Systems Verification and Validation, and Mission Assurance
Increasingly complex and (Artificial Intelligence) AI-enabled systems will require a commensurate increase in sophistication of verification and validation mechanisms. This thrust seeks to develop verification techniques for requirements identification, systems of systems architectures, and virtual integration of components. Additionally, research in this area will enable requirements verification for software assurance, analysis and control of unverified code, and automated repair of damaged code. Software production and code analysis methods developed through this program will also improve the accuracy of behavior prediction of complex software, including AI-enabled systems, in untested environments.
Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research in the areas of Information Assurance (IA)
To gain full advantage from data and information generated by software for use in missions, DoD needs to assure its software is free of vulnerabilities. In its complex systems, DoD may use software developed from an unknown supply chain that may include intentionally or unintentionally introduced vulnerabilities. This thrust seeks to develop scalable automated methods to locate, understand, and mitigate the effects of these vulnerabilities. Automated solutions developed through this thrust will be used to discover vulnerabilities in system software source code and to generate proofs of correctness or fault. Additionally, these solutions will be used to model and simulate operational environments to support software and cyber tactics, techniques, and procedures testing.
Cyber Security
Warfighting in the cyber domain often operates at sub-second timescales and across multiple domains of authority. Methods used to accomplish many tasks (e.g., malware analysis, coordinating multiple agents) demand large amounts of time, attention, and special skills and are not scalable. This thrust seeks to develop and increase the use of automation to simplify the completion of these tasks. Example activities include automation of moving target defenses, code artifact reverse engineering, analysis of network flows at enterprise scale, assessing the operating boundaries for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, and development and assessment of workforce skills.
Budget Line Items(workbook-cited)
P-1/R-1 workbook Total Obligation Authority basis (USD thousands) · PB2026.
Exhibit R-1
| Account | Org | Type | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide | OSD | FY24 Actuals | $10.5M |
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide | OSD | FY25 Enacted | $11.3M |
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide | OSD | FY25 Total | $11.3M |
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide | OSD | FY26 Disc. Request | $8.88M |
| Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide | OSD | FY26 Total | $8.88M |
Budget Details(R-2/P-40 facts)
J-book detail basis (R-2/P-40, USD millions) · PB2026 — a different accounting basis from the P-1/R-1 workbook TOA above; where the two disagree, the reconciliation strip under Budget Figures shows both.
Wider than this screen — swipe the table sideways for the remaining fiscal-year columns.
| Project | All Prior Years | FY24 Actuals | FY25 Total | FY26 Base | FY26 Request |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Program Element | $9.79M | $10.5M | $11.3M | $8.88M | $8.88M |
| 278: Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research | $9.79M | $10.5M | $10.4M | $8.88M | $8.88M |
| 817: Cyber Security, Applied Research | $0 | $0 | $942.0K | $0 | $0 |
No follow-the-dollar view — this program's awards haven't been crosswalked at high confidence (flows cover 17 of 1,741 programs). why coverage is partial? →
Awards
No awards are linked to this program element at high confidence — the budget→award crosswalk only asserts links it can defend, and this line has none yet.
Lobbying Mentions
4 mentions from the Senate LDA disclosure database.
Legislative & Regulatory Issues Related to Technology Policy, including R&D, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Health IT…
Legislative & Regulatory Issues Related to Technology Policy, including R&D, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Health IT…
Legislative & Regulatory Issues Related to Technology Policy, including R&D, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Health IT…
Legislative & Regulatory Issues Related to Technology Policy, including R&D, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Health IT…
Oversight
Department-level designation (not specific to this program)
GAO lists 5 high-risk areas for DOD as a whole. That designation covers the department, not Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Applied Research — no program-specific GAO finding for this line is in the ingested data. See the DOD oversight record.
No research dossier for this program — dossiers cover 50 of 1,741 programs, the largest fully J-book-detailed lines by FY2026 requested dollars. why no dossier here? →