Defense Sciences Office (DSO) Office-wide BAA
Sponsor: DSO, DARPAInternal Deadline: 11/23/2026Institutional Submission Limit: variesSponsor Deadline: 08/27/2027Program Website
To support its mission, DSO is interested in engaging with the R&D community to tackle complex challenges and develop impactful capabilities. DSO organizes its research portfolio into the high-interest thrust areas described below, but will consider any fundamental research concept, idea, or effort addressing DARPA’s mission to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.
1. Materials, Manufacturing, and Energy Systems
Breaking the tensions between performance and efficiency for new materials,
manufacturing flexibility, propulsion, and energy availability.
2. Sensing, Measuring, and Affecting
Pushing the fundamental limits for orders-of-magnitude improvement in awareness,
communications, and control.
3. Math, Computation, and Processing
Enabling quantum, and reimagining classical, computing for enhanced efficiency and
new capabilities.
4. Complex, Dynamic, and Intelligent Systems.
Revolutionizing scientific methods for harnessing complex complex and adaptive systems, from
materials to human-AI (artificial intelligence) ecosystems.
DSO is explicitly not interested in approaches or technologies primarily resulting in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice or are for manufacturing scale-up.
DSO Fundamental Defense Research Talent Award (FDRTA) Option
University primes are invited to include an optional task for the DSO Fundamental Defense
Research Talent Award (FDRTA) in their abstract, to be further elaborated on in a proposal,
if invited (FDRTA is limited to one award per Prime proposer). This option is intended to
foster the development of the next generation of clearable scientific talent in strategically
important areas of research by providing supplementary funding for a U.S. citizen graduate
student or postdoctoral researcher involved in the proposed fundamental research.
If this option is proposed, the Government may, at its discretion, provide an additional award of up to $150,000 per year for the duration of the effort. Award of the FDRTA option is
contingent upon the successful award of the base proposal. FDRTA funding decisions will be made independently based on the availability of funds and an assessment of the option's merits.
One Submission at a Time: Proposing PIs may only submit one (1) preproposal submission (i.e., either an abstract or executive summary) at a time. If a proposer submits multiple preproposal submissions, DARPA will only evaluate the first submission received based on the timestamp noted in BAAT, and may reject all subsequent submissions as non-conforming prior to responding to the first-received submission.
Submission Process
Limited submissions MUST be coordinated with the Office of the Vice President for Research.
If interested in applying for this opportunity, please combine the following items into a single PDF and email to resdev@mailbox.sc.edu by 5pm on the INTERNAL DEADLINE above:
- Cover page with grant program name & number (if applicable) to which you are applying, your project title, PI (name, department/unit, & email), and list of co-PIs/key collaborators (name & department/unit)
- a two-page project abstract addressing key components/criteria for this specific grant program
- a 2-3 page CV/biosketch for the PI (SCiENcv preferred)