STEWARDSHIP SCIENCE ACADEMIC ALLIANCES PROGRAM | DE FOA 0003242

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003242

The Stewardship Science Academic Alliances (SSAA) Program is a grant opportunity offered by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), specifically through the Office of Defense Programs. The program exists to strengthen the science base that supports the nation s Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), which is the long term, science driven approach the United States uses to maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of its nuclear weapons stockpile without conducting underground nuclear testing. Since the U.S. testing moratorium began in 1992 and the arsenal was significantly reduced, national policy pushed NNSA and the weapons laboratories to rely on advanced experiments, high fidelity physics models, and cutting edge computational tools to assess and predict weapon performance across many conditions. SSAA is one of the ways NNSA ensures that the fundamental research and the people capable of doing it continue to exist in the U.S. university system.

A central goal of this funding opportunity is to support state of the art academic research in technical areas that directly matter to stockpile stewardship, especially areas that may not be strongly supported by other federal funding sources. In addition to producing new scientific knowledge, the program is explicitly tied to workforce development. It is meant to build and sustain a pipeline of trained scientists and engineers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who can meet current and future SSP needs. In practice, that means proposals are expected to do more than publish papers; they should also provide high quality research training for students and early career researchers in fields that align with NNSA mission requirements.

This particular announcement invites applications for both new awards and renewals of existing SSAA research grants, and it directs current SSAA grantees seeking continued support to apply under this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). The research topics emphasized in this call include: (1) properties of materials under extreme conditions and material processing, which generally relates to how materials behave when exposed to very high pressures, temperatures, strain rates, or radiation fields and how those materials can be produced or processed; (2) low energy nuclear science, which often includes nuclear structure, nuclear reactions, and measurement science relevant to stewardship applications; and (3) radiochemistry, covering chemical behavior, separations, detection, and analysis involving radioactive materials that can be important for diagnostics, forensics, and stewardship science.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is listed as a discretionary grant under Funding Opportunity Number DE FOA 0003242, with the funding activity category described as science and technology and other research and development and the CFDA number 81.112. Eligible applicants include public and state controlled institutions of higher education and private institutions of higher education, and the text also references certain nonprofit organizations (501(c)(3)) as eligible in some contexts. The agency anticipates making around 30 awards, and the listed award ceiling is $300,000, indicating the maximum expected award amount per project under this announcement.

Applicants must submit full applications through Grant.gov, not through FedConnect. FedConnect is used for handling questions about the NOFO content: prospective applicants are expected to register in FedConnect to post questions as an interested party and to see official answers. NNSA indicates it will generally try to respond to questions within about three business days, and it encourages early registration so applicants can benefit from posted Q and A. There is also a hard timing rule for questions: they should be submitted no later than five calendar days before the application due date, because questions received after that point may not be answered in time to be useful.

For help that is strictly about the mechanics of applying (registration problems, system requirements, form functionality, or submission issues), applicants are instructed to contact Grants.gov support directly rather than NNSA, using 1-800-518-4726 or support@grants.gov. The NOFO lists a grants management specialist contact, Kristee Hall, via the FedConnect portal, and the SSAA program contact is Terri Stone at terri.stone@nnsa.doe.gov. The original closing date shown for this opportunity is 2024-06-20, and the posting (creation) date is 2024-03-01, which frames the application window and the timeline for preparing questions and assembling the proposal package.

• The NNSA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "STEWARDSHIP SCIENCE ACADEMIC ALLIANCES PROGRAM" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.112.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-03-01.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-06-20. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 30 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for DE FOA 0003242

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