The NSF Trailblazer Engineering Impact Award (TRAILBLAZER) program supports individual investigators who propose novel research projects with the potential to innovatively and creatively address national needs and/or grand challenges, advance US leadership, and catalyze the convergence of engineering and science domains. TRAILBLAZER will support engineers and scientists who leverage their distinctive track record of innovation and creativity to pursue new research directions that are distinct from their previous or current research areas.

The NSF Directorate for Engineering (ENG) seeks to build engineering research capacity across the nation by investing in new academic investigators who have yet to receive sufficient research funding from Federal Agencies. The Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) program will support new investigators as they initiate their research programs and advance in their careers as researchers, educators, and innovators. This funding opportunity aims to broaden the base of investigators involved in engineering research and therefore is limited to investigators that are not affiliated with “very high research activity” R1 institutions.

Through the Geothermal Collegiate Competition, the U.S. Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) encourages students to develop innovative solutions for geothermal energy application challenges and build career skills for the clean energy workforce. Teams must have at least three undergraduate and/or graduate members (can be from multiple schools) and students of any discipline can participate. Final competition deliverables will be due in December 2024.

For more than a decade, the BNEF Pioneers program has identified a group of game-changing technologies or innovations annually – each with the potential to accelerate global decarbonization and halt climate change. Applicants are shortlisted by the BNEF Pioneers team, and finalists are judged by a panel of BNEF experts. Winners must prove they offer a novel, substantial, scalable and competitive solution. In 2025, the program will focus on three global climate challenges and will award the Pioneers prize to innovators with scalable, impactful and equitable solutions to these challenges.

The program will bring together entrepreneurs from across Africa, empowering them to address climate resilience and food security. Founders will receive expert training, critical resources to accelerate their ventures, a one-week in-person residency in Washington, DC, and a one-week in-person residency in Nairobi, Kenya.

The program will bring together entrepreneurs from across DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV), empowering them to address climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Founders will receive expert training, critical resources to accelerate their ventures, and two in-person residency weeks in the DMV. We’re looking for (for-profit) startups that are building scalable solutions that are tackling challenges related to climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience across the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced up to $127.5 million in federal funding to support the development of carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture, removal, and conversion test centers for cement manufacturing facilities and power plants.  This effort supports the establishment of test centers to cost-effectively research and evaluate carbon capture, removal, and conversion technologies in an industrial/utility environment.

NSF-supported science and engineering research increasingly relies on cutting-edge infrastructure. With its Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program and Major Multi-user Facilities (“Major Facilities”) projects, NSF supports infrastructure projects at the lower and higher range of infrastructure project costs, Foundation-wide, across science and engineering research disciplines. The Foundation-wide Mid-scale Research Infrastructure opportunity is intended to provide NSF with an agile, Foundation-wide process to fund experimental research capabilities in the mid-scale range between MRI and Major Multi-user Facilities.

The Ocean Exchange Collegiate Award, and the Guy Harvey Foundation Collegiate Award 2024, of $10,000 USD each, are given to the solutions that advance our understanding of the ocean and help minimize our impact on these resources, even while using them for human benefit, resulting in more resilient bodies of water including healthy marine life and coastlines.

The Science and Technology Centers (STC): Integrative Partnerships program supports exceptionally innovative, complex research and education projects that require large-scale, long-term awards. STCs focus on creating new scientific paradigms, establishing entirely new scientific disciplines, and developing transformative technologies which have the potential for broad scientific or societal impact. STCs conduct world-class research through partnerships among institutions of higher education, national laboratories, industrial organizations, other public or private entities, and via international collaborations, as appropriate. They provide a means to undertake potentially groundbreaking investigations at the interfaces of disciplines and/or highly innovative approaches within disciplines. STCs may involve any area of science and engineering that NSF supports. STC investments support the NSF vision of creating and exploiting new concepts in science and engineering and providing global leadership in research and education. Centers provide a rich environment for encouraging scientists, engineers, and educators to take risks in pursuing discoveries and new knowledge.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $43 million in funding for projects that will advance research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) in several areas critical to the future of advanced batteries. The funding will drive innovations in low-cost electric vehicle (EV) battery electrode, cell, or pack manufacturing; improve battery safety and reduce cascading failures; and strengthen the domestic supply chain of inexpensive and abundant battery materials. This funding is aligned with strategies detailed in the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, which is a landmark interagency framework of strategies and actions to remove all emissions from the transportation sector by 2050, by advancing battery technologies that can power safe and efficient zero-emission EVs.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) announced the Offshore Wind National and Regional Research and Development Funding Opportunity, which will award $48.6 million for projects that address several major areas of need for offshore wind. The areas include accelerating research and development of floating offshore wind platforms; exploring innovations for fixed-bottom foundations; improving offshore wildlife protection through new monitoring technologies; expanding the reach of the domestic supply chain; advancing U.S. academic leadership in floating offshore wind; and investigating solutions to protect future infrastructure from lightning.