Early Career Faculty (ECF)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters anticipates the release of a solicitation, titled Early Career Faculty (ECF), as an appendix to the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) umbrella NASA Research Announcement (NRA) titled "Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion 2024 (SpaceTech REDDI 2024), on or about June 12, 2024. The solicitation will be available by opening the NSPIRES homepage at https://nspires.nasaprs.com/, selecting Open under "Solicitations," and searching "Early Career Faculty (ECF24) under Keywords.

The Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) Program within STMD seeks proposals from accredited U.S. universities on behalf of their outstanding new faculty members who intend to develop academic careers related to space technology.

The solicitation will exclusively seek proposals that are responsive to one of the following two topics:

Topic 1 Transformational Advanced Energetic Propulsion

Topic 2 Power Systems to Enable Small System Operations in Permanently Shadowed Lunar Regions

Only accredited U.S. universities are eligible to submit proposals on behalf of their outstanding new faculty members who intend to develop academic careers related to space technology. The Principal Investigator (PI) must be an untenured Assistant Professor on the tenure track at the sponsoring U.S. university at the time of award (May 2025). The PI must be a U.S. citizen or have lawful status of permanent residency at the time of proposal submission. The PI must be the primary researcher on the effort; Co-Investigators are not permitted. Collaborators (other than NASA civil servants/JPL) are permitted. See the solicitation for complete requirements regarding eligibility and for definitions and restrictions regarding collaborators.

A PI may submit only one proposal in response to this appendix.

NASA values submission of ECF proposals on behalf of early-career faculty members at all U.S. universities, including emerging research institutions (non-R1 classification) and minority-serving institutions, and encourages proposals submitted on behalf of diverse communities.

The financial and programmatic support for ECF comes from the Space Technology Research Grants Program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate. Awards are planned to start in May 2025. NASA plans to make approximately 10 awards as a result of this ECF solicitation, subject to the receipt of meritorious proposals and the availability of funds. The actual number of awards will depend on the quality of the proposals received; NASA reserves the right to make no awards under this solicitation.

All proposals must be submitted electronically through NSPIRES by an authorized organizational representative. Proposals are being solicited via a two-step process where preliminary proposals are mandatory and only those invited may submit a full proposal. Mandatory preliminary proposals are due on or before July 15, 2024, 5 pm Eastern, and the target deadline for invited full proposals is October 24, 2024, 5 pm Eastern. Detailed submission instructions and due dates are provided in the solicitation. Potential proposers and their proposing organizations are urged to familiarize themselves with the submission system, ensure they are registered in NSPIRES, and submit the required proposal materials well in advance of the deadline.

STMD is strongly committed to ensuring that proposal review is performed in an equitable and fair manner that reduces the impacts of any unconscious biases. To this end, this Appendix will employ a Dual-Anonymous Peer Review (DAPR) process to evaluate proposals. Using DAPR, not only are proposers not told the identities of the reviewers, but the identities of the proposers (personnel and organization names) will not be shared with the reviewers until after the technical review of all anonymized proposals has been completed.

Technical and programmatic comments and questions may be addressed by email to the Space Technology Research Grants Program Executive at hq-ecf-call@mail.nasa.gov. Responses to inquiries will be answered by email and may also be included in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) documents located on the NSPIRES page associated with the solicitation; anonymity of persons/institutions who submit questions will be preserved.