DoD Funding Opporunities Rick Blum ECE Dept

6.1, 6.2 … AFOSR, ARO, ONR 6.1 is scientific funding – AFOSR, ARO, ONR Best for academics, most flexible, least overhead, hardest to get Each agency has a yearly general BAA (online) that lists areas and program managers. You have to convince the program manager (PM) they should fund you. Some PMs send proposals for review, probably to people they fund (can sometimes find online). Usually get to attend meetings of all PIs which are excellent. DARPA usually requires lots of demos, may be good to team with a company or someone good at this. ONR has some applied (6.2) PMs.

Labs DoD Labs : AFRL, ARL, NRL (often more 6.2…) Can serve as people which move the science into implementation Some excellent people at these places, some work on science AFRL, ARL have funding An excellent want to get DoD funding is to join their summer programs (online applications – Jan for some?). Some programs allow you to get a small grant at the end of the summer, but a good relationship could provide larger funding for quite a long time if things go well. Typically fund year-to-year, maybe with companies, may only allow US citizens (this can happen with DARPA also and they can add restrictions)

DARPA versus Scientific DARPA program managers are very short term (scientific can be longer term) and they usually come in and build a unique program. They may need your help selling the program to their management. Building a demo and showing something can work (maybe in a limited way) is more important than papers. This is a bit different from NSF or Scientific DoD (which are similar). I personally send very similar proposals to DoD Scientific programs and to NSF. I just omit all the outreach and non-research stuff.

Finding Contact Info/Announcements Scientific – online general yearly BAAs, other online material. Find those PMs that have interest close to yours. They will send you elsewhere if your interest is not really closely matched. They are very busy. Labs – check the summer programs, lists names, areas. You can approach these people directly. May go to conferences. They do announce funding opportunities (BAAs) but if you don’t know them I think your chances are slim. As you move farther down from 6.1, personal contact becomes important, but ideally you can contact them and convince them to fund you if you have good ideas. DARPA – funding opportunities announced, some material online, talk to companies that do work related to yours if they exist (defense contractors or tech companies).