Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is a United States research agency under the Director of National Intelligence's responsibility. In January 2008, Lisa Porter, an administrator at NASA with experience at DARPA, was appointed director of the activity formed in 2006 from the National Security Agency's Disruptive Technology Office (DTO), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s National Technology Alliance and the Central Intelligence Agency’s Intelligence Technology Innovation Center.

Goals
The Director of National Intelligence in a September 2006 speech stated that the goal of the agency is to conduct research that
 * Cuts across multiple IC agencies;
 * Targets new opportunities that lie in the white spaces between agencies;
 * Provides innovations that agencies avoid because of current business models; and
 * Generates revolutionary capabilities that will surprise our adversaries and help us avoid being surprised.

Program offices
IARPA is divided into three program offices, Smart Collection, Incisive Analysis, and Safe & Secure Operations. The goal of the Office of Smart Collection is to "dramatically improve the value of collected data from all sources." The Office of Incisive Analysis exists to "maximize insight from the information we collect, in a timely fashion." IARPA's third division, the Office of Safe & Secure Operations, exists to "counter new capabilities implemented by our adversaries that would threaten our ability to operate freely and effectively in a networked world."

The Metaphor Program
The Metaphor Program is a two-phase project designed to first develop automated techniques for recognizing, defining and categorizing linguistic metaphors and then use that information to characterize differing cultural perspectives. The Program is headed by Heather McCallum-Bayliss. On May 2011, IARPA issued an open solicitation for private sector parties to participate in the Program.