Assistance program
Basic, Applied, and Advanced Research in Science and Engineering
$3.0 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Washington Headquarters Services (WHS), Dept of Defense
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements;Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 12.630
- What it does
- To: (1) Support basic, applied, or advanced research in mathematical, physical, engineering, environmental, and life sciences, and other fields with good, long-term potential for contributing to technology for Department of Defense missions; (2) facilitate transition of research results to practical application for defense needs; (3) improve linkages between defense research and the civilian technology and industrial bases, to promote commercial application of the results of defense research and commercial availability of technology for defense needs; (4) foster education of future scientists and engineers in disciplines critical to defense through research projects; and (5) strengthen the infrastructure for research and related science and engineering education in those disciplines.
- Who benefits
- Beneficiaries may include individual graduate and undergraduate students (e.g., recipients of fellowships or research traineeships) in science and engineering disciplines important to defense, as well as organizations described under "Applicant Eligibility."
- Who applies
- The eligibility for applicants will be in accordance with the individual program announcements, BAAs, or other notices of funding opportunity. Generally, competitions are open to private and public educational institutions that carry out science and engineering research and/or related science and engineering education; however, competition may be limited to a class of such institutions, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities or other minority institutions (HBCUs/MIs). Some competitions may allow eligibility to other types of organizations, such as for-profit applicants. However, awards are not made to individuals.
- Authorized by
- 10 U.S.C. 4001; 10 U.S.C. 2362
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Grants
$2.1B
70%
Other
$912.5M
30%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments