Funding Wizard

The Office of Science (SC) of the Department of Energy (DOE) hereby announces its continuing interest in receiving grant applications for support of work in the following program areas: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Biological and Environmental Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Isotope R&D and Production, and Accelerator R&D and Production. On September 3, 1992, DOE published in the Federal Register the Office of Energy Research Financial Assistance Program (now called the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program), 10 CFR 605, as a Final Rule, which contained a solicitation for this program. Information about submission of applications, eligibility, limitations, evaluation and selection processes and other policies and procedures are specified in 10 CFR 605. This FOA is our annual, broad, open solicitation that covers all research areas in SC and is open throughout the Fiscal Year. Any research within SC’s Congressionally-authorized mission may be proposed under this FOA. This FOA will remain open until September 30, 2023, 11:59 PM Eastern Time, or until it is succeeded by another issuance, whichever occurs first. This FOA succeeds DE-FOA-0002562, which was published September 30, 2021.

The DOE SC program in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) hereby announces its interest in receiving new applications for Energy Innovation Hub projects pursuing multi-investigator, cross-disciplinary fundamental research to address emerging new directions as well as long-standing challenges for the next generation of rechargeable batteries and related electrochemical energy storage technologies. Electrochemical energy storage is typically viewed as the bidirectional interconversion of electricity and chemical potential energy using electrochemistry for the purpose of storing electrical energy for later use, with lithium (Li)-ion and lead acid batteries being representative of the current generation of electrochemical energy storage. Discovery and scientific exploration of new battery chemistries, materials, and architectures for energy storage are encouraged. Research on electrolyzer/fuel cell combinations using hydrogen or hydrocarbons as the chemical storage media are supported elsewhere within DOE programs and are specifically excluded from this FOA. Regardless of materials and electrochemical processes involved, the focus must be on fundamental scientific concepts and understanding for the next generation of batteries and electrochemical energy storage.The proposed fundamental electrochemical energy storage research should impact a broad range of topics, including decarbonization of transportation and incorporation of clean energy into the electricity grid, especially for long duration energy storage (LDES). Two recent DOE-wide activities involving batteries and related electrochemical energy storage are the Energy Storage Grand Challenge and the Long Duration Storage Energy EarthshotTM. Electrochemical energy storage technology has the potential to accelerate full decarbonization of the electric grid, and the Long Duration Storage Shot establishes a target to reduce the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% for systems that deliver 10+ hours of duration within the decade. More broadly the Energy Storage Grand Challenge provides a programmatic framework that supports the vision to develop and domestically manufacture energy storage technologies, including batteries and other electrochemical energy storage, that can meet all U.S. market demands by 2030. Given the foundational role of basic scientific research in providing the needed technology options to support these critical goals, Energy Innovation Hub investments in scientific discovery and exploration to advance the fundamental understanding of electrochemical energy storage processes, materials, and systems are needed. Progress in the fundamental science topics described in the 2017 Basic Research Needs for Next Generation Electrochemical Energy Storage Workshop will drive innovation in batteries and advance development of new and effective energy storage technologies needed for a decarbonized economy by 2050.

Fusion energy is a potentially safe, abundant, zero-carbon-emitting source of reliable primary energy. Major recent worldwide advances in the science[1],[2],[3] and technology[4] of fusion energy, the emergence of a strong and growing private fusion sector in the United States and abroad,[5] and the objective of achieving “net-zero” global carbon emissions by 2050[6] have made the acceleration of fusion energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) a national priority. Augmenting the present scientific mission of the Office of Science (SC) Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program with supporting “the development of a competitive fusion power industry in the U.S.” was both authorized in the Energy Act of 2020 and consistent with the recommendations of recent community-informed expert studies and reports, such as the 2020 Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) Long-Range Plan Powering the Future[7] and the 2021 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid.[8] The latter helped motivate the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and DOE to co-host a summit on Developing a Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy.[9] A common theme among these recent activities was the recognition that public-private partnerships (PPPs) present an opportunity to accelerate fusion energy RD&D. A DOE-sponsored Workshop on Fusion Energy Development via Public-Private Partnerships was held recently (June 1–3, 2022); workshop presentations are posted publicly on the FES website.[10] This FOA invites applications for a new milestone-based fusion development program (as authorized in the Energy Act of 2020), which is a key component of the bold decadal vision to accelerate fusion energy RD&D in partnership with the private sector. Applications may be submitted for applied R&D to resolve scientific and technological issues toward the successful design of a fusion pilot plant (FPP).[11] [1] https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-experiment-puts-re…. [2] H. Abu-Shawareb et al., “Lawson Criterion for Ignition Exceeded in an Inertial Fusion Experiment,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022); https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00391-1. [3] https://www.euro-fusion.org/news/2022/european-researchers-achieve-fusi…. [4] https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusion-energy-09…; https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/cfs-commercial-fusion-power-with-hts-…. [5] The Global Fusion Industry in 2022, Fusion Companies Survey by the Fusion Industry Association. [6] https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050. [7] https://science.osti.gov/-/media/fes/fesac/pdf/2020/202012/FESAC_Report… [8] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25991/bringing-fusion-to-the-… [9] https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/03/15/fact-sheet-deve… and https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/04/19/readout-of-the-… [10] https://science.osti.gov/fes/Community-Resources/Workshop-Reports [11] An FPP should demonstrate a significant amount of net fusion electricity (e.g., >50 MWe) for >3 continuous hours (i.e., phase 1b of the NASEM report in footnote 8) with a timely path to one full power year (i.e., phase 2 of the NASEM report), at a total capital cost that can attract private funding.

BER supports fundamental, interdisciplinary research to achieve a predictive systems-level understanding of Earth, environmental and biological systems. The overarching goals of the BER Program are to support transformative science to solve critical challenges in energy security and environmental stewardship. As part of its mission, BER invests in crosscutting technologies and programs to enable multiscale, systems-level research to achieve a predictive understanding of systems biology, biological community function, and environmental behavior. BSSD within BER aims to provide the necessary fundamental science to understand, predict, manipulate, and design biological processes that underpin innovations for bioenergy and bioproduct research and to enhance our understanding of natural environmental processes relevant to DOE. BSSD supports fundamental research to understand the systems biology of plants and microbes through the GSP. The GSP’s portfolio includes systems biology research that builds on a foundation of multi-omics data and integrates multidisciplinary experimental and computational approaches. Within this framework, one of the objectives of the GSP is to develop the next generation of genome engineering technologies to unlock the potential of plants and microorganisms for the safe and efficient conversion of renewable biomass, captured CO2 from the atmosphere, and/or petroleum-derived polymers into fuels, valuable chemicals, and materials with novel properties, advancing towards a sustainable and secure bioeconomy. The iterative application and testing of those engineering technologies to design living organisms with new functional properties also leads to a deeper understanding of the fundamental principles governing those organisms. Therefore, this “design, build, test, learn” (DBTL) cycle not only results in improved biosystems design, but also leads to a more comprehensive knowledge of relevant biological systems. During the last decade, the fields of systems and synthetic biology and artificial intelligence have seen momentous advances that have dramatically accelerated the DBTL cycle for engineering biology. More efficient approaches for genome-wide editing, analysis, and phenotyping become available, and new computational tools and modeling algorithms can handle increasingly large datasets while continuously improving their prediction accuracy. To bring these advances to the next level, integrative multidisciplinary applications are solicited for highly innovative, fundamental multi-omics and systems biology research and technology development for biosystems design. Applications should respond to one of the following two research topics: Microbial biosystems design for the production of biofuels, bioproducts, and biomaterials: Applications should pursue multidisciplinary approaches to develop genome-wide design and editing, and in vivo or cell-free engineering technologies for eukaryotic or prokaryotic microbes to produce biofuels, bioproducts, or biomaterials from lignocellulosic biomass, petroleum-derived synthetic polymers, or as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Applications are expected to propose the development of highly innovative, high-throughput platforms for biological design and testing, supported by advanced modeling and computational tools. A focus on new or emerging model systems to expand the breadth of platform microorganism for engineering is encouraged. Genome engineering strategies to develop organisms that efficiently produce chemicals or materials while sequestering atmospheric CO2 are also encouraged. Research areas of interest include but are not limited to: i) in vivo, cell-free, or intercellular systems to confer new functionalities such as biosensors, tunable genetic circuits, and subcellular compartmentalization that enable the synthesis of desirable products; ii) orthogonal metabolic, macromolecular synthesis, and signaling pathways that equip cells to biologically carry out processes not found in nature; iii) design of recoded, minimal, and/or synthetic genomes with novel properties; iv) engineering microorganisms that can break down petroleum-derived synthetic polymers and/or convert them into valuable products; and v) design and engineering microorganisms for the production of biominerals, inorganic-organic composites, and composites of inorganic materials and living cells (living materials) with wholly new properties not found in known organisms. Plant biosystems design for bioenergy, bioproducts, and biomaterials: Applications should focus on integrative studies to engineer plant systems to achieve sustainable production of biofuels, bioproducts, and biomaterials; substantially improve bioenergy crop performance in marginal environments; and/or increase biomass yield while making it more amenable to deconstruction and conversion into desirable chemicals. Relevant goals for crop design and engineering include but are not limited to: i) increasing abiotic stress tolerance, ii) achieving higher water and/or nutrient use efficiency, iii) improving photosynthetic capacity, iv) facilitating cell wall deconstruction and subsequent conversion to advanced biofuels and bioproducts, and v) engineering the production of bioproducts or biomaterials. Proposed research should include innovative technologies for the introduction and expression of large, stable, multigene DNA constructs, genome-wide editing and recombineering, and high-throughput phenotyping, supported by computational approaches for modeling and design. Epigenetic engineering approaches to attain programable and tunable gene expression across the genome are encouraged. Research on model plants should be kept to a minimum and the main focus of the applications should be on potential or emerging bioenergy crops, including but not limited to switchgrass, poplar, Miscanthus, eucalyptus, sorghum, energy cane, and non-food oilseed crops.

The DOE SC program in High Energy Physics (HEP) hereby announces its interest in new and renewal grant applications for support of research programs in high energy physics. The following program descriptions are offered to provide more in-depth information on scientific and technical areas of interest to HEP: Program Website: https://science.osti.gov/hep/. The mission of the HEP program is to understand how the universe works at its most fundamental level, which is done by discovering the elementary constituents of matter and energy, probing the interactions between them, and exploring the basic nature of space and time. The scientific objectives and priorities for the field recommended by the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) are detailed in its 2014 long-range strategic Particle Physics Project Prioritization Plan (P5), available at: https://science.osti.gov/~/media/hep/hepap/pdf/May-2014/FINAL_P5_Report…. The HEP program focuses on three (3) experimental scientific frontiers: The Energy Frontier - where powerful accelerators are used to create new particles, reveal their interactions, and investigate fundamental forces using highly sensitive experimental detectors; The Intensity Frontier - where intense particle beams and highly sensitive detectors are used to pursue alternate pathways to investigate fundamental forces and particle interactions by studying events that occur rarely in nature, and to provide precision measurements of these phenomena; and The Cosmic Frontier - where data from the universe are used to probe fundamental physics questions and offer new insight about the nature of dark matter, cosmic acceleration in the forms of dark energy and inflation in the early universe, neutrino properties, and other phenomena. Together, these three interrelated and complementary discovery frontiers offer the opportunity to answer some of the most basic questions about the world around us. Also integral to the mission of HEP are crosscutting research areas that enable new scientific opportunities by developing the necessary tools and methods for discoveries: Theoretical High Energy Physics, where the vision and mathematical framework for understanding and extending the knowledge of particles, forces, space-time, and the universe are developed; Accelerator Science and Technology Research and Development, where the technologies and basic science needed to design, build, and operate the accelerator facilities essential for making new discoveries are developed; and Detector Research and Development, where the basic science and technologies needed to design and build high energy physics detectors essential for making new discoveries are developed.

This FOA solicits new applications for multi-investigator cross-disciplinary early-stage fundamental research to address emerging new directions as well as long-standing challenges in liquid solar fuels generation via artificial photosynthesis approaches. Artificial photosynthesis is typically viewed as the generation of fuels using only sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water as inputs. However, for the purpose of this FOA the concept of artificial photosynthesis approaches will be expanded to include other abundant feedstocks beyond carbon dioxide, such as nitrogen. Regardless of feedstock, the focus must remain on fundamental scientific concepts for solar-driven liquid fuel production. Applications should focus on the highest scientific priorities in solar fuels production as identified by the 2019 Liquid Solar Fuels Roundtable and will be required to address priority research opportunities (PROs) denoted in 2019 Liquid Solar Fuels Roundtable Report (Brochure). The research should capitalize on unique capabilities and accomplishments developed to date, including those from BES-funded efforts in the Fuels from Sunlight Hub, Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs), and BES core programs. Projects should also integrate experiment and theory to elucidate scientific principles for light energy capture and conversion into chemical bonds.

The DOE SC programs in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) (https://science.osti.gov/fes) and Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) (https://science.osti.gov/ascr) hereby announce their interest in receiving multi-institutional applications for the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) Partnerships program (https://www.scidac.gov/). This FOA invites new applications for the SciDAC-5 Partnerships that enable or accelerate scientific discovery and programmatic objectives, aligned with the FES mission and the Department’s vision for fusion energy (https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/04/19/readout-of-the-…), through effective collaborations between fusion / plasma scientists and applied mathematicians and/or computer scientists from the SciDAC Institutes (https://www.scidac.gov/institutes.html) that fully exploit the capabilities of DOE High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities

The DOE Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DOE EPSCoR) announces its interest in receiving new and renewal applications from applicants within eligible jurisdictions for Implementation Grants. Grants awarded under this program are intended to improve research capability through the support of a group of scientists and engineers, including undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, working on a common scientific theme in one or more EPSCoR jurisdictions. These awards are not appropriate mechanisms to provide support for individual faculty science and technology research projects. While the academic, non-profit and industrial research communities are welcome to lead or to participate in applications, a strong component of student education in research is required for all applicants.DOE EPSCoR follows NSF EPSCoR RII Program eligibility determinations. Thus, entities located within the following jurisdictions will be eligible to apply under this FOA: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virgin Islands, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The DOE SC program in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) hereby announces its interest in applications in the areas of Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Data Resources for fusion energy and plasma sciences. The goal of this FOA is to support multi disciplinary teams aiming to apply advanced and autonomous algorithms to address high-priority research opportunities across the FES program. Applicants are encouraged to propose research in new systems for managing, formatting, curating, and accessing experimental and simulation data, provided in publicly available databases. Of high programmatic importance are approaches that support the realization of a fusion pilot plant on a decadal timescale.

The DOE SC program in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) hereby announces its interest in receiving applications to advance North America’s First High Intensity Laser Research Network (LaserNetUS). The goal of this FOA is to offer support to new and existing LaserNetUS nodes that will advance the frontiers of laser science and applications, provide students and scientists with broad access to unique facilities and enabling technologies, foster collaboration among researchers and networks from around the world, and develop the workforce needed to advance high intensity laser science and Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE).