WELCOME

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, the U.S. Navy prepared a Final Environmental Assessment (EA) evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with the proposed construction and operation of a Naval Innovation Center at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) located aboard Naval Support Activity Monterey. The Navy requested public input on the Draft EA from Feb. 23 through March 25, 2024, to ensure community concerns are considered and appropriately addressed.

Finding of No Signifcant Impact

The Navy has determined that the implementation of the Boiler Plant Site Alternative would not significantly impact the quality of the human or natural environment, so an Environmental Impact Statement will not be prepared. This conclusion was based on the analysis presented in the Final EA, consideration of public comments received on the Draft EA, and potential impacts on historic properties. The Navy’s findings come in coordination with the Office of Historic Preservation, Department of Parks and Recreation, and Monterey Bay Unified Air Quality Management District.

Project Background

The purpose of the proposed Naval Innovation Center at NPS is to enhance its graduate education and research mission to include innovation for the development of defense-focused, naval-relevant solutions. The Naval Innovation Center at NPS would bring interdisciplinary research together with industry partners, faculty, staff, and graduate students from specific areas of education to cultivate innovations that address current and future challenges and national security obligations.

U.S. seapower enables safe access to the world’s oceans for American and global trade, 90 percent of which travels by ship – the lifeblood that links every country. America’s maritime advantage is technology-driven, and most of the technology innovation comes from industry.  

To leverage industry innovation more effectively, the Navy needs a Naval Innovation Center designed to facilitate collaboration for applied research solutions with new technologies, while simultaneously developing leaders educated to employ them. 

“Education is the key connector for this work,” said Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy. “Our educational institutions hold great promise and opportunity.”

The Secretary of the Navy identified NPS as the ideal location for this Naval Innovation Center. NPS is centrally located to U.S. Pacific Fleet concentration areas and to our nation’s leading hub of technological innovation. Additionally, as a 100 percent defense-focused graduate institution, NPS offers expert faculty and operationally experienced students to focus and inform research solutions.

While modernization efforts are ongoing at NPS to upgrade facilities built in the 1950s, these efforts are focused on existing classrooms and laboratories. The Proposed Action is for a Naval Innovation Center with purposefully designed features that fully leverage the attributes of NPS for rapidly developing research concepts into capabilities that meet naval-unique mission requirements.

NPS is the Department of the Navy’s home of graduate science and technology education. It offers world-class defense-focused graduate degree programs to eligible U.S. military personnel, international military students, and eligible civilians from across the nation. NPS is the only graduate institution in the country exclusively focused on mid-career military students. 

NPS students learn and work alongside defense-expert faculty on applied research to solve some of the toughest challenges facing the Navy, Marine Corps, joint, and allied forces. The Naval Innovation Center would enhance the NPS mission by bringing advanced technologies to its campus through collaborations with industry, empowering NPS faculty and students to help move research concepts from “idea to impact,” and advancing capability and national defense capacity.