In order to best address the Initiative's stated mission, the sponsorship of SEAri involves two main thrusts: a consortium and single sponsor research. The consortium includes members from industry and government with an interest in systems engineering research, either in general or involving a specific research question. The consortium thrust ensures the Initiative has a vested stake in real world problems and impact, ensuring relevance. The consortium is designed to tackle problems that are both appropriately and more feasibly undertaken as broader collaborative endeavors for the benefit of the community. Consortium members receive benefits commensurate with their level of engagement. The single sponsor research thrust involves supporting a specific set of research goals, typically more narrowly defined when compared with consortium research.

The following organizations sponsor various levels of SEAri research.

Current Sponsors 

Air Force Office of Scientific Research
AFOSR continues to expand the horizon of scientific knowledge through its leadership and management of the Air Force’s basic research program. As a vital component of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), AFOSR’s mission is to support Air Force goals of control and maximum utilization of air, space, and cyberspace.

Air Force Human-Systems Integration Office
AFHSIO

MIT Lean Advancement Initiative
LAI is an evolving learning and research community that brings together key aerospace stakeholders from industry, government, and academia. 

MIT-Portugal Program
The Portuguese Government, through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, is entering into a long-term collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) focusing on basic research and education. The collaboration focused on engineering systems gives emphasis to large-scale systems that not only have critical technological components, but also have significant enterprise and socio-technical level interactions that call for engineers in leadership positions to have training in engineering systems that goes beyond traditionally defined engineering disciplines.

Singapore DSO National Laboratories
Established in 1972, DSO National Laboratories (DSO) has evolved into Singapore’s foremost applied R&D organisation with more than 900 research scientists and engineers under its wings.

Past Sponsors

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Draper Laboratory is a research and development laboratory, employing more than 750 engineers, scientists, and technicians on a broad array of programs for government and commercial sponsors among its 1,025 employees.

MITRE Corporation
The MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit organization chartered to work in the public interest. As a national resource, we apply our expertise in systems engineering, information technology, operational concepts, and enterprise modernization to address our sponsors' critical needs.