RITA's Research, Development, and Technology (RD&T) office's mission is to coordinate research across all modes of transportation and to promote advanced innovative transportation solutions. RD&T coordinates a research planning council, a planning team, and several research clusters that are dedicated to certain multimodal research subjects. The planning council ensures crossmodal collaboration and coordination in research being done with DOT and its partners, and advises the Secretary of Transportation on research issues. The planning team supports the council by reviewing and coordinating departmental research plans and budgets, assessing research, and promoting best practices in research performance and technology transfer.