bitcoin-supporting research project funded by unknown private sponsors. DCI pays the salary of Wladimir Van Der Laan, the chief Core developer. He holds the master key to the GitHub
package, and thus has the final say on which BIPs are accepted (basically, those that Blockstream wants, like SegWit) and which are rejected (basically, those that Blockstream does not
want, like any block size increase).
That may also explain why MIT has seemed to more friendly bitcoin than most other universities. See the old plan for a $100 BTC "airdrop" to their
undergrad students (which apparently was abandoned after a few "drops") and the occasional positive coverage on the magazine MIT Technology Review.
