The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (U.S. DOT) highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awards over $10 million annually in contracts to U.S. small businesses to pursue research on and develop innovative solutions to our nation’s transportation challenges. U.S. DOT issues annual solicitations—typically in the winter—for Phase I research proposals, with subsequent opportunities for follow-on Phase II, Phase IIB, and Phase III awards.

Through its Planning and Local Technical Assistance programs, EDA assists eligible recipients in developing economic development plans and studies designed to build capacity and guide the economic prosperity and resiliency of an area or region. The Planning program helps support organizations, including District Organizations, Indian Tribes, and other eligible recipients, with Short Term and State Planning investments designed to guide the eventual creation and retention of high-quality jobs, particularly for the unemployed and underemployed in the Nation’s most economically distressed regions. Applications are accepted on a continuing basis and processed as received. This Planning and Local Technical Assistance opportunity will remain in effect until superseded by a future announcement.

The Community Action Fund (CAF) grants support direct actions and organizing efforts that are often urgent and time sensitive. CAF prioritizes frontline, grassroots and community-based efforts that defend Indigenous peoples rights, communities and nations, including responses to climate disasters.

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), through the TAP, provides financial and technical assistance to federally recognized Indian Tribes. The TAP establishes cooperative working relationships, through partnerships with Indian Tribes, to assist Tribes as they develop, manage, and protect their water and related resources. Reclamation’s

The goal of the PERSEPHONE SBIR/STTR program is to develop disruptive new technologies for bioenergy crop genetic engineering. Bioenergy provides about 5% of domestic energy consumption and has the potential to provide 5-10% more. Agriculture also could revolutionize the energy sector in other ways, such as providing precursors for chemicals and materials that are currently derived from petroleum. However, bioenergy crops may not maintain their current utility, much less achieve their potential, without transformative advances in tools to engineer them. Genetic engineering is an essential strategy to realize U.S. bioenergy potential and security.

This funding opportunity seeks to foster environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture in communities by addressing the need for conservation education and resource support in urban and underserved communities. Projects may include conservation practice demonstration and education opportunities as well endeavors to engage historically underserved growers and communities in NRCS programs. In addition, on established USDA People’s Gardens, projects can include support for things like climate smart conservation practices, stormwater runoff and erosion control, and habitat establishment and management.

The FES Discovery Plasma Science: Plasma Science and Technology–General Plasma Science (GPS) program seeks new or renewal single-investigator or small-group applications to carry out hypothesis-driven frontier-level research in basic plasma science and engineering. This program aims to develop accurate descriptions of the complex behavior of the plasma state, to push it into new regimes that expand our concept of what constitutes a plasma, to design experiments and diagnostics to explore these states, and to validate theoretical models. GPS topical areas are broad and include but are not limited to: understanding the onset of magnetic reconnection and trigger mechanisms for explosive instabilities in nature (solar flares, geomagnetic storms) and in the laboratory; magnetic dynamo processes by which magnetic fields are generated in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas; mechanisms by which energy is transferred between fields, flows, and particles; how coherent
structures are created through the self-fields of the plasma and its interactions with waves; coupling of dusty plasma in strong magnetic fields; and plasma chemistry and processes related to interaction of plasma with surfaces, materials, or biomaterials.

The Exchange Network (EN) was launched in 2002 as an intergovernmental, collaborative partnership of EPA, states, territories, and Tribes to foster better environmental management and decision-making through increased access to timely, high quality environmental information. This was achieved through a standards-based approach to facilitate environmental data sharing among EPA, states, Tribes, and territories. The framework adopted allows organizations to exchange data over the Internet regardless of the specific information technology used.

DOE SC hereby invites applications for support under the ECRP in the following program areas: Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); High Energy Physics (HEP); Nuclear Physics (NP); Isotope Research and Development (R&D) and Production (DOE IP); and Accelerator R&D and Production (ARDAP). The purpose of this program is to support the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in their careers and to stimulate research careers in the areas supported by SC.

EmPower Massachusetts offers multiple stages of investment in communities and community-based organizations so that they can explore, develop, and implement program models or projects that provide access to the benefits of clean energy for previously underserved populations. This MassCEC program crowd-sources new and innovative ideas, then helps put them into action.

The objective of the Private Facility Research (PFR) program is to support public research utilizing world leading experimental capabilities owned by private companies. Along the path to constructing Fusion Pilot Plants (FPPs), many private fusion companies are constructing interim small-to-large scale research facilities to establish the scientific and/or technological basis for their chosen fusion concepts. Since the research on these interim facilities is largely foundational in nature, the mission overlap between the public and private sectors is large. The PFR program
serves as a bridge from boldly delivered private sector hardware back to foundational research expertise residing in the public sector. Through the program, public researchers will conduct open peer-reviewed science at private facilities, to enhance the scientific rigor and breadth of the existing private efforts for the mutual benefit of all involved. As with all thriving high-tech industries, a strong connection to foundational research is essential.