Defense, Security

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Limiting Language
Only one proposal will be considered by ECA from each applicant organization. In cases where more than one submission from an applicant appears in grants.gov, ECA will only consider the submission made closest in time to the NOFO deadline; that submission would constitute the one and only proposal ECA would review from that applicant.

Executive Summary
The Office of Global Educational Programs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for the FY 2025 Community College Initiative (CCI) Program. ECA is seeking proposal submissions for one cooperative agreement to design, implement, and oversee the CCI Program.

The program advances America’s security and prosperity by equipping foreign students, many from regions vulnerable to radicalization or illegal immigration, with technical skills in critical industries. With improved technical, professional, and entrepreneurial skills, the participants return home to contribute to economic growth and stability in countries of strategic importance to the United States. 

U.S. public and private non-profit organizations meeting the provisions described in Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3) that represent consortia or other combinations of accredited U.S. community colleges may submit only one proposal to cooperate with the Bureau under this competition. Only one proposal will be considered by ECA from each applicant organization. In cases where more than one submission from an applicant appears in grants.gov, ECA will only consider the submission made closest in time to the NOFO deadline; that submission would constitute the one and only proposal ECA would review from that applicant.

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Limiting Language
Applicants can submit one application in response to the NOFO.  If more than one application is submitted by an organization, only the final application received, and time stamped by grants.gov will be reviewed for eligibility.  Each application can include multiple projects, each containing its own scope and budget, that will be evaluated independently. 

Executive Summary
ISN/CTR administers the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Technology Program (FIRST) to enable partner countries’ responsible nuclear energy deployment under the highest nuclear security, safety, and nonproliferation standards. FIRST is ISN’s flagship programmatic tool to advance President Trump’s Executive Order on Unleashing American Energy in global nuclear energy markets.  Launched in 2019, FIRST harnesses the power of U.S. public-private partnerships and the innovation of the U.S. nuclear industry to engage partner countries worldwide seeking to build or expand their nuclear energy programs to meet energy needs. Expertise acquired through FIRST workshops, webinars, technical consultancies, study tours, feasibility studies, SMR simulators, regional training hubs, and site visits includes SMR technology selection, SMR deployment roadmaps, SMR fleet deployment regional harmonization initiatives, nuclear security and nonproliferation considerations for SMR deployment, nuclear safety and licensing best practices for advanced reactors, SMR site selection and characterization, nuclear workforce development, stakeholder engagement, preparation for SMR financing, integrating nuclear in the energy mix, planning for responsible spent fuel and SMR waste management, and more. These civil nuclear energy partnerships harness the power of the U.S. nuclear industry to expedite the deployment of safe, secure, and proliferation-resistant SMRs meeting the highest international standards.

Priority Region: Africa (AF), East Asia Pacific (EAP), Europe (EUR), Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), South and Central Asian (SCA), Western Hemisphere (WHA)

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Limiting Language
Applicants can submit one application in response to the NOFO.  If more than one application is submitted by an organization, only the final application received, and time stamped by grants.gov will be reviewed for eligibility.  Each application can include multiple projects that will be evaluated independently. 

Executive Summary
ISN/CTR administers the Counterproliferation and Sanctions Enforcement (CASE) program to increase global capacity to implement and enforce U.S. and international sanctions imposed on Iran and DPRK and thwart these nations’ abilities to develop ballistic missile (BM), drone and unmanned aerial system (UAS), and nuclear capabilities that pose a threat to U.S. national security. Established in 2017 to support the Trump Administration’s pressure campaign against the DPRK, the CASE trains partners to enforce U.S. and international sanctions constraining DPRK weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. In parallel, CASE is ISN’s flagship programmatic tool to implement Maximum Pressure on Iran through National Security Presidential Memorandum 2. In support of these campaigns, CASE facilitates sanctions implementation by equipping partner governments and private sector leaders with expertise and enforcement tools to detect, disrupt and prevent Iranian and DPRK sanctions evasion activities that enable their acquisition of proliferation sensitive technologies, materials, and expertise.  CASE activities ultimately strengthen maritime security, cybersecurity, and global sanctions regimes; disrupt Iran and DPRK revenue generation; and protect U.S. supply chains, U.S. companies’ global investments, and U.S. access to international markets.

Priority Region: Africa (AF), East Asia Pacific (EAP), Europe (EUR), Near Eastern (NEA), South and Central Asian (SCA), Western Hemisphere (WHA)

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Limiting Language
Applicants can submit one application in response to the NOFO.  If more than one application is submitted by an organization, only the final application received, and time stamped by grants.gov will be reviewed for eligibility.  Each application can include multiple projects that will be evaluated independently. 

Executive Summary
ISN/CTR’s Biosecurity Engagement Program (BEP) advances the Trump Administration’s Executive Order (E.O.) on Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research, which pledges to “balance the prevention of catastrophic consequences with maintaining readiness against biological threats and driving global leadership in biotechnology, biological countermeasures, biosecurity, and health research”. In alignment with this E.O., BEP engages partner countries to prevent U.S. adversaries from developing or using biological weapons (BW) against Americans. BEP also protects U.S. biotechnologies, sensitive data, and intellectual property (IP), and bolsters U.S. leadership of global biotechnology markets through private sector engagement to outcompete China, and promotes partner countries’ adoption of U.S. laboratory security, safety, and cybersecurity standards. To successfully achieve this mission, BEP partners include biological and biotechnology laboratories, bio- and data repositories, universities, science and technology organizations or academies, foreign government organizations and entities, biosafety associations or similar professional associations, and private industry.  The expertise and tools acquired through BEP engagements are critical to enable our partners to counter the predatory and exploitative efforts of U.S. adversaries that threaten U.S. national and economic security.

Priority Region: Africa (AF), East Asia Pacific (EAP), Europe (EUR), Near Eastern (NEA), South and Central Asia (SCA), Western Hemisphere (WHA)

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Limiting Language
Applicants can submit one application in response to the NOFO.  If more than one application is submitted by an organization, only the final application received, and time stamped by grants.gov will be reviewed for eligibility.  Each application can include multiple projects that will be evaluated independently. 

Executive Summary
ISN/CTR's Chemical Security Program (CSP) is a counterproliferation program designed to prevent U.S. adversaries from acquiring the materials, equipment, and expertise needed to advance chemical weapons (CW) programs that threaten U.S. national security. CSP engages key stakeholders in frontline countries to ensure they are better able to identify, interdict, and investigate high-risk transfers; enforce U.S. sanctions; recognize and attribute chemical attacks; and promote U.S. chemical security standards and risk-based best practices for partner country chemical industries. Through targeted engagements, CSP disrupts U.S. adversaries' efforts to weaponize pharmaceutical based agents (PBAs) for offensive and military applications, builds countries ability to recognize and attribute chemical weapons (CW) attacks, and disrupts illicit chemical shipments that could be used to produce CW. CSP also promotes security coordination between partner governments and private industry to improve counterproliferation implementation. Through this targeted, preventive programming, CSP enhances U.S. and partner resilience by closing the chemical counterproliferation gaps exploited by American adversaries, while simultaneously promoting U.S. chemical security standards and reducing undue burden on business.    

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Eligibility
Applicants can submit one application in response to the NOFO.  If more than one application is submitted by an organization, only the final application received, and time stamped by grants.gov will be reviewed for eligibility.  Each application can include multiple projects that will be evaluated independently. 

Executive Summary 
China and Russia systematically exploit global supply chains and the U.S. financial system to acquire proliferation-sensitive goods and technologies and support onward proliferation through illicit trade networks. These actions are in violation of U.S. and international laws and regulations and undermine American security and prosperity and the security of our partners and allies.   

ISN/CTR conducts global national security programming that counters illicit procurement, investment schemes, and financing networks that China and Russia use to exploit international trade and finance.  U.S. and partner country sanctions and economic deterrents target the nodes and sectors that enable China’s & Russia’s military modernization and sanctions evasion efforts; however, these tools are only as strong as their implementation and enforcement around the globe. 

ISN/CTR provides partners with enhanced capabilities to identify and disrupt complex sanctions evasion strategies and understand the risks of noncompliance (e.g. potential secondary sanctions). ISN/CTR accomplishes this through technical engagements that provide resources to assist partners to identify and avoid transactions with designated entities, and their associated networks. Engagements are tailored to discrete audiences within the public and private sector and address region or jurisdiction-specific issues.

 

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Eligibility
Applicants can submit one application in response to the NOFO.  If more than one application is submitted by an organization, only the final application received, and time stamped by grants.gov will be reviewed for eligibility.  Each application can include multiple projects that will be evaluated independently. 

Executive Summary
U.S. adversaries, including China, are seeking advanced and emerging technologies to advance their military capabilities and to develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and advanced conventional weapons against the United States.  A significant number of foreign governments, public and private research organizations, tech industries, and start-up communities are unaware of dual-use applications of technologies and remain vulnerable to theft and loss of technologies, data, intellectual property (IP), knowledge and talent that can be leveraged for military end uses.  For example, semiconductors, which are critical components in a most of today’s electronic devices, are also a critical input for the development of military technologies, WMD and WMD delivery systems, and technologies with potential dual-uses – such as artificial intelligence.  In addition to seeking advanced technologies, adversaries exploit commercial and scientific facilities, training centers, and the seas to conduct illegal military operations.

Malign actors use legal and illegal means such as joint commercial ventures, talent recruitment programs, research partnerships/funding, predatory contracting agreements, private equity investments, joint scientific facilities/laboratories, cybertheft, state-sponsored industrial espionage, supply chain diversion, or sales or donation of untrusted hardware and software to acquire foreign intellectual property, conduct dual-use research and development, or conduct military activities under the guise of science diplomacy or commercial activity.  Affiliations and links to military entities are often obfuscated or disguised when establishing collaborations and partnerships in order to gain admission and secure visas to study or conduct research on sensitive advanced and emerging technologies at foreign universities; to procure critical equipment and components from unsuspecting or indiscriminate commercial or scientific institutions; or when establishing joint scientific facilities or operating in international business markets. 

ISN/CTR seeks to enable key foreign partners to protect critical advanced and emerging technologies from exploitation by our adversaries for military, technological, and economic advancement; secure U.S. intellectual property (IP) abroad; and prevent the exploitation of commercial and scientific partnerships in several key areas, including but not limited to: aerospace and space technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnologies, neuroscience, quantum computing and sensing, semiconductors, and smart cities.  ISN/CTR also seeks to apply risk reduction tools to more traditional security vulnerabilities that are exploited by proliferator states for military training, geographic influence, etc.  

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Eligibility
Applicants are only allowed to submit one proposal per organization. If more than one proposal is submitted from an organization, all proposals from that institution will be considered ineligible for funding.

Executive Summary
The U.S. Embassy Bangkok Public Diplomacy Section (PDS) is pleased to invite eligible applicants to submit program ideas to implement the American Cybersecurity Enhancement Program (ACEP) for Thai Entrepreneurs. This program will leverage American cybersecurity best practices to address the critical need for robust and adequate cybersecurity measures among businesses, startups, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand. The program must include American elements or connections with American experts, companies, or organizations in the respective fields.

Limit: 1 // Available: 0

D. Moseke

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act appropriated $50 billion to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (the Department or DOC) CHIPS for America program to strengthen semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. This amount includes $39 billion for the Department to onshore semiconductor manufacturing through an incentives program and $11 billion to advance U.S. leadership in semiconductor research and development (R&D). These R&D advances will primarily be realized through the following four programs: the CHIPS National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), the CHIPS National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program (NAPMP), the CHIPS Metrology Program, and the CHIPS Manufacturing USA Program (MFG USA). These investments, across both the R&D and incentives programs, seek to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, support domestic production and innovation, create good jobs across the country—with working conditions consistent with the Good Jobs Principles published by the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Labor—and advance U.S. economic and national security.

The CARISSMA program will complement these efforts by generating or enhancing sustainable semiconductor materials and processes. Research outputs should prove relevant and translatable to industry, the NSTC, the CHIPS Manufacturing USA Program, and other CHIPS programs. The competition should further enhance participation in and availability of academic-industry partnerships and research infrastructure for CHIPS Act funded activities and the development of a thriving semiconductor-related AI/AE talent pool.

Eligibility 
Under this NOFO, eligible applicants are domestic accredited institutions of higher education and domestic non-profit or for-profit organizations that manage consortia of accredited institutions of higher education. A domestic entity is one that is incorporated within the United States (including a U.S. territory) with its principal place of business in the United State (including a U.S. territory). Eligible applicants may submit only one concept paper and, if invited, one full application.

Limit: 20*// Available: 2

Advanced Product Manufacturing- RFI: Limit: 5 // Available: 0
H. Budinoff (Systems and Industrial Engineering) 
P. Deymier (Materials Science & Engineering)
P. Lucas (Materials Science & Engineering)
M. Shafae (Systems and Industrial Engineering) 
A. Wessman (Materials Science & Engineering)
Advanced Weapon System Capabilities - RFI: Limit 5 // Available: 0
V. Yurkiv (Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering)
B. Parent (Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering)
B. Potter (Materials Science & Engineering)
B. Revil Baudard (Materials Science & Engineering)
O. Cazacu  (Materials Science & Engineering)
Collaborative Autonomy - RFI: Limit 5// Available: 1
J. Thanga (Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering)
H. Rastgoftar (Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering)
B. Liu (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
E. Lee (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
High Assurance Networks (HAN)- RFI: Limit 5 // Available: 1
M. Krunz (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
B. Bash (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
J. Thanga (Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering)
E. Lee (Electrical and Computer Engineering)

RTX University Research is looking for novel ideas and innovative concepts that are aligned with the specific technology needs stated below. In your application, please provide a 700-word description of the proposed research or technology:

• Clearly outline the relevance of your proposed project to the specific technology needs.
• Articulate how it will advance the field of research.
• Explain how deliverables and outcomes would lead to a continued and deeper research partnership with RTX businesses.
• Discuss opportunities for future collaborations with institutions, organizations or experts.
• Discuss follow-on funding opportunities and specific funding agencies who would have interest in the technology, and the outcomes that will be necessary to stimulate that interest.

Please provide a statement of work (SOW) that breaks down the proposed project into tasks

• Explain in brief terms how you would secure and allocate resources, including facility, equipment, personnel (must include graduate or undergraduate students or both), and any other funding sources that would complement the RTX funding
• Discuss in brief terms how you would address any risks, including potential delays.
• In bullet point format, clearly define tasks and their associated milestones, schedule, and deliverables.

Please provide budget details to include all expected costs to be covered by the RTX funding.