Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 National Science Portal Pilot (NSPP)

Background
The Basic Research National Science Portals (NSPs) seek to accelerate DoD critical scientific areas and flood the United States with diverse STEM talent by capitalizing on the demonstrated excellence of Historically Black Colleges and Universities/ Minority Serving Institutions/ Tribal Colleges (HBCU/MSI/TCs) and building their research capacity in critical research areas. The topic areas that we seek to support with this FOA are independent from those described in our open Broad Agency Announcement (Research Interests of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research) and do not fall completely within any one research program. We seek to support multidisciplinary research efforts, creating synergies to speed DoD-relevant research and development.

Grant Details
The FOA is intended to attract faculty and students to conduct cutting-edge basic research in the technical areas listed, build capacity needed to support this research, and attract students to pursue studies leading to STEM careers. The FOA seeks proposals in three topic areas: Directed Energy, Fluid Surface Material Interaction, and Data, Models: Machine Learning for Scientific Discovery. Each topic area has specific objectives, background information, anticipated resources, and contact details for topic chiefs.

Eligibility Requirements
Proposals from an investigator team from multiple university departments and universities are warranted to assemble the expertise necessary to address the topics. Teams are also highly encouraged to leverage industry collaborations, where appropriate, to demonstrate an ability to develop solutions that can be eventually applied to a specific application.

Period of Performance
The anticipated period of performance is a three-year base period. Proposals must be received electronically through Grants.gov by 12 June 2023 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time to be considered. AFOSR reserves the right to select and fund for award all, some, part, or none of the proposals received.

Grant Value
AFOSR anticipates making at least three awards of $750,000 to $1,500,000 per year per award for a maximum of three years. The total amount of funding made available may vary based on the quality of proposals received and funds availability.