Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC)
Funding Agency:
- Department of Energy
The DOE SC program in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) announces a re-competition of the Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) program and encourages both new and renewal applications. Applications from multi-disciplinary teams will be required to propose discovery science and use-inspired basic research that addresses priority research directions and opportunities identified by a series of BES workshop and roundtable reports. The focus of the EFRC program is on fundamental scientific research, therefore applications to this FOA must not propose applied research and technology development activities. BES is soliciting renewal applications for basic science in three topical areas: 1) Transformative manufacturing, 2) Quantum information science (QIS), and 3) Environmental management. BES is soliciting new applications for basic science in two topical areas: 1) Co-design of materials and processes to revolutionize microelectronics and/or QIS fabrication, and 2) Environmental management.
The BES mission is to support fundamental research to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels. BES research provides scientific foundations for DOE missions in energy, the environment, and national security. The portfolio supports fundamental research in materials sciences, chemistry, geosciences, and biosciences. BES also supports world-class, open-access scientific user facilities consisting of a complementary set of intense x-ray sources, neutron sources, and research centers for nanoscale science.
The EFRC program brings together diverse world-class teams of scientists to perform basic research with a scope and complexity beyond what is possible in single-investigator or small-group awards. These multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary centers accelerate transformative scientific advances for the most challenging topics in materials sciences, chemical sciences, geosciences, and biosciences. EFRCs conduct fundamental research to address grand challenges identified in the report Directing Matter and Energy: Five Challenges for Science and the Imagination (December 2007) and transformative opportunities identified in the report Challenges at the Frontiers of Matter and Energy: Transformative Opportunities for Discovery Science (November 2015). In addition, EFRCs perform basic research to fill scientific knowledge gaps identified in major strategic planning efforts by BES and the scientific community (see below). EFRCs integrate synthesis, characterization, theory, computation, and data science; develop innovative experimental and theoretical tools that illuminate fundamental processes in unprecedented detail; and create an enthusiastic, inter-disciplinary, diverse community of energy-focused scientists.
Further information about BES and the EFRC program can be found here:
• BES: https://science.osti.gov/bes/
• EFRC: https://science.osti.gov/bes/efrc/
DOE anticipates that award sizes will range from $2,000,000 per year to $4,000,000 per year.
DOE anticipates that, subject to the availability of future year appropriations, a total of $100 million in current and future fiscal year funds will be used to support awards under this FOA, of which $25 million will be available annually.
February 28, 2024 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time A Pre-Application is required.
Internal Submission and Review: If you are planning to submit a proposal to this RFP, Please send a summary of the project with Intellectual Merit, Broader Impact, List of Key Personnel with Affiliations, and Budget Outline to Shawn Chester at shawn.chester@njit.edu by February 21, 2024 for institutional review and selection as needed for this limited submission RFP opportunity.
March 27, 2024 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time
Warren Riley
Conracting Officer
warren.riley@science.doe.gov