There&#x27;s a US Govt agency called NIST. They sponsor &quot;contests&quot; basically for academics and engineers to put forth proposals for crypto algorithms, which are then reviewed. I&#x27;d read up on here[1], if it interests you at all, you can find the original academic papers regarding each of what became the standards, and I think they have references as to the review process as well.<p>[1]<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;csrc.nist.gov&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;csrc.nist.gov&#x2F;</a>