Stewardship Science Grant Program

(1) To grow the U.S. scientific community through university involvement in areas of fundamental science and technology relevant to stockpile stewardship; (2) to promote and sustain scientific interactions between the academic community and scientists at the NNSA laboratories; (3) to train scientists in specific areas of long-term research relevant to stockpile stewardship; (4) to increase the availability of unique experimental facilities sited at NNSA's laboratories to the academic community, particularly for collaborations in areas of relevance to stockpile stewardship; and (5) to develop and maintain a long-term recruiting pipeline to NNSA's laboratories by increasing the visibility of NNSA's Defense Program's scientific activities to the U.S. faculty and student communities.

Some solicitations are open to institutions of higher education only and others include nonprofit organizations and for profit commercial organizations. See individual funding opportunity announcements for details on eligibility.

(1) Alignment with the areas of technical scope; (2) Scientific/technical merit of the project, including innovativeness and originality; (3) Expected impact on the area of technical scope addressed; (4) Consistency with the objective of this academic alliances program to focus on advanced experimental investigations; (5) Qualifications of the Applicant's personnel and adequacy of proposed resources; (6) Feasibility of plans for carrying out the proposed research, considering such factors as: appropriateness of the technical method and approach, facility compatibility, other commitments, competition and timing; (7) For projects currently receiving funding under this program, the scientific impact of recent results and accomplishments; (8) Level of interaction with NNSA/DP laboratory personnel and the potential to train students in scientific areas defined by the technical scope in order to build a long-term recruiting pool for the NNSA/DP laboratory complex. Generally, a higher degree of interaction both quantitatively and qualitatively is considered desirable; (9) Leverage provided by cost sharing with other funding sources.

This program has no statutory formula. Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Fiscal Year2026: Funding may be used to fund grants or cooperative agreements to conduct fundamental science and technology research of relevance to stockpile stewardship. Some technical areas of interest are properties of materials under extreme conditions, low energy nuclear science, high energy density physics, and radiochemistry.