The Naval Postgraduate School serves the United States Navy and Marine Corps by providing research, education, and strategic partnerships that directly support the Naval mission.


The NWSI team makes sure NPS never misses a beat. We regularly take stock of NPS activity and capabilities to align these efforts to Naval leadership priorities. We strengthen connections among related efforts across the NPS ecosystem, and we create new initiatives when needed to make sure NPS is adapting to evolving mission needs.

NPS supports the Chief of Naval Operation's four priorities as articulated in the CNO Navigation Plan: Readiness, Capabilities, Capacity, and Sailors.

NWSI guidance on NPS' alignment with these priorities follows closely how these priorities are detailed in the NAVPLAN Implementation Framework (NIF). 

Readiness: Deliver a more ready fleet

Naval Objective: A Navy that is manned, trained, and equipped to deploy forward and win in day-to-day competition, in crisis, and in conflict. We will consistently complete maintenance on-time and in full, refurbish our critical readiness infrastructure, master all-domain fleet operations, and exercise with like-minded navies to enhance our collective strength.
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NPS Capabilities:
Naval readiness requires efficient defense management processes and an operationally informed perspective on the varied possibilities that may occur in deployment/combat.  
  • NPS’ Department of Defense Management provides research and education that routinely analyzes how core business processes such as supply chain management, acquisition, and logistics function today and can be improved in the future.
  • The NPS wargaming center works with DoD, allies, and partners to explore how the Navy can lead in diverse scenarios.
NPS Capabilities-Readiness

Capabilities: Deliver a more lethal, better-connected fleet

Naval Objective: A Navy capable of projecting synchronized lethal and non-lethal effects across all domains. We will deploy the Naval Operational Architecture by the middle of this decade; an array of counter-C5ISRT capabilities; weapons of increasing range and speed; and a directed-energy system capable of defeating anti-ship cruise missiles.
 
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NPS Capabilities:
The NPS campus offers numerous laboratories, experimentation spaces, and classified research facilities where faculty, students, and partners from DoD and industry develop the next generation of naval capabilities.
  • Active projects include 5G-enabled command and control in partnership with AT&T, piloting of advanced manufacturing techniques such as Xerox’s liquid metal 3D printer, and a joint force high-energy laser working group.
  • NWSI has research task forces targeted to naval priorities of Project Overmatch and maritime gray zone, as well as two research groups that work directly with special operations (Bucklew Research Group) and security threats in the Indo-Pacific (Nimitz Research Group) to produce research and capabilities relevant to their unique operational challenges.

In alignment with the NAVPLAN Implementation Framework (NIF), NPS research and education assesses and suggests improvements to how the Navy shoots, maneuvers, defends, and resupplies.
  • Many of the NPS capabilities listed here are constantly engaged with the four enablers to these Naval capabilities: Naval Operational Architecture, unmanned systems, live virtual constructive learning, and artificial intelligence.
NPS Capabilities-Capabilities
  • Buckew Research Group
  • Nimitz Research Group
  • Naval Research Program -- funded by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) to support research projects at NPS for the Navy and Marine Corps. 

  • Acquisition Warfare

  • Expeditionary Warfare

  • Information Warfare

  • Integrated Air and Missile Defense

  • Naval Aviation

  • Space Warfare

  • Special Warfare

  • Surface Warfare

  • Undersea Warfare

Capacity: Deliver a larger, hybrid fleet 

Naval Objective: A larger, hybrid fleet of manned and unmanned platforms – under, on, and above the sea – that meets the strategic and operational demands of our force. We will deliver the Columbia-class program on time; incorporate unmanned systems into the fleet; expand our undersea advantage, and field the platforms necessary for Distributed Maritime Operations.
 
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NPS Capabilities: NPS has numerous research activities, curricula, interdisciplinary groups, and experimentation events focused on the structure of the naval fleet and the capabilities of uncrewed platforms.
  • NWSI’s Hybrid Force Research Task Force holds interdisciplinary innovation workshops that generate research-based concepts that influence NPS capstone classes, research topics, experimentation, wargaming, and prototyping efforts.
  • The Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) provides a DoD-wide community of interest, headquartered on the NPS campus, that conducts and applies research and experimentation on unmanned systems in military and naval operations.
NPS Capabilities-Capacity
  • Hybrid Force Research Task Force (Fleet 2045)
  • Amphibious Warfare Chair
  • Naval Aviation Warfare Chair
  • Undersea Warfare Chair

Sailors: Develop a seasoned team of naval warriors

Naval Objective: A dominant naval force that can outthink and outfight any adversary. Our Sailors will remain the best trained and educated force in the world. We will cultivate a culture of warfighting excellence rooted in our core values. 
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NPS Capabilities: NPS’s rigorous curriculum is continually adapted to prepare defense professionals with knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to compete in the information age.
  • Students frequently participate in hands-on workshops, laboratories, and technology experimentation events.
  • They hear firsthand from intellectual leaders in the military community, both in the classroom and at regularly scheduled guest lectures, where they are encouraged to add their perspective for debate and discussion.  
  • Deep engagement with interdisciplinary research instills habits of mental agility in NPS graduates, who return to operational missions primed to take action and develop innovative solutions to emerging and asymmetric challenges.
NPS Capabilities-Sailors
  • The Big Idea Exchange 
    • An NPS initiative that brings forward new and potentially game-changing thinking developed by NPS faculty and students to address grand challenges in American national security
  • NWSI Seapower Conversations
    • A growing series of warfighter-relevant seminars started in 2019 with a series of discussions with the legendary naval strategist, retired US Navy CAPT Wayne Hughes, about his seminal work, "Fleet Tactics." 
  • NWSI Warfare Innovation Workshops
    • A rapid concept generation activity leveraging tools of user-centered design to approach a complex military problem space 
  • Secretary of the Navy Guest Lecture Series
    • This series exposes students to prominent speakers, recognized as distinguished leaders in their fields of expertise.