Yes, it's just about working with people who are doing things of interest to the Army. Army leaders have been saying for a while that, without partnerships, there are areas in which the Army can't keep up with the pace of technological change, the spread of new technologies, and what people who haven't historically had access to military R&D can do with those technologies. For example, mines used to be limited to a relatively few armies. Then somebody figured out how to set off stacks of stolen explosives with a cell phone and we had to deal with IEDs.

Also, my command executes about 75% of the Army's R&D budget and does a fair amount of engineering for Army and other federal organizations. All that totals up to about $6 - 6.5 billion a year. That's a lot of money, but not enough to keep up with everybody everywhere in every field of interest to the Army. So we partner.

As far as exclusive vs non-exclusive, there has long been a segment of the military industrial complex that takes Army research and builds things to sell to the Army (and we have programs to help them do that), or to turn the research into civilian products. It goes project by project, so I don't make blanket statements. That said, the open campus idea that was pitched to by the lab to our commander is pretty much exactly what it says in their press releases. My general understanding is that people like military contracts, but if you restrict them to a military contract then the people with some of the best ideas lose interest. Again, that's just my understanding because I'm sometimes in the room for various discussions. If this were an official query I'd have to check with several people to give an official, informed reply.