The mission of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D) is to support U.S. national and nuclear security objectives in reducing global nuclear security threats through the innovation of unilateral and multi-lateral technical capabilities to detect, identify, and characterize: 1) foreign nuclear weapons programs; 2) illicit diversion of special nuclear materials; and, 3) global nuclear detonations.
The intent of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to award ONE or TWO five-year cooperative agreement(s) to a consortium consisting of accredited IHE’s to allow them to receive and administer funds for student and faculty research, fellowships, and scholarship funding awarded by DOE/NNSA, DNN R&D.
The cooperative agreement will be awarded to a consortium of IHEs which will include the participation of DOE National Laboratories as a consortium-member(s). Individual consortium-member IHEs shall make specific contributions and shall receive specified portions of the funding.
The consortium may include student and research fellows and must have a long-term objective of building expertise in nuclear science and engineering. Research results should be incorporated readily into IHE curricula. Students, faculty, and researchers must be able to work unencumbered while moving across organizational and bureaucratic boundaries of the academic and governmental facilities engaged in the consortium, while properly protecting critical information and materials. The consortium should establish reciprocal arrangements between the lead IHE and other IHEs as well as relationships with appropriate DOE National Laboratories.
The direct outcome of this program is the development of professionals with skill-sets to support foundational disciplines of nuclear physics, science and engineering, radiation detection, nuclear material science, radiochemistry, and mass spectrometry. These professionals will have careers as scientists, engineers, technicians, operational personnel, and intelligence professionals, among others, and will be leaders in active in nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear arms control, nuclear incident response, nuclear intelligence activities, nuclear energy, and other nuclear-related fields. These professionals are expected to benefit academia, private industry, and several US government agencies, including Energy, State, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and the Intelligence Community.
Deadline: July 29, 2020
In accordance with 2 CFR 910.126(b), Competition, eligibility for award is restricted to domestic IHEs because the purpose of the IUP, as established by Section 313 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, Public Law 111-8, is “to support university research and development.” IHEs provide a different, more fundamental, theoretical, innovative perspective on research and development than that provided by the laboratories or industry. IHEs are also the best sources for innovative, long-term ideas because of their inherent close ties to new developments in the basic sciences, their ability to construct cross-disciplinary teams, and their ability to test new concepts and ideas with theoretical and experimental rigor. Further, the support provided to IHEs will help foster a recruitment pipeline of future nuclear non-proliferation and other nuclear security professionals who will contribute significantly to the national security of the United States.
First Award: DOE/NNSA may fund $25 million under this FOA for the first award, contingent upon the availability of appropriate funds for all five years.
Second Award: If additional funds become available, the second award DOE/NNSA funds under this FOA is likely to be less than $25M, contingent upon the availability of appropriate funds for all five years.
