Assistance program
Research and Technology Development
$4.3 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), Dept of Defense
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements
- CFDA number
- 12.910
- What it does
- To support and stimulate basic research, applied research and advanced research at educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and commercial firms, which may have military or dual-use application. This support may take the form of grants, cooperative agreements, or technology investment agreements (TIAs).
- Who benefits
- Public and private educational institutions. Nonprofit organizations operated for purposes in the public interest and commercial firms.
- Who applies
- For grants, eligibility is limited to public and private educational institutions and nonprofit organizations operated for purposes in the public interest. For cooperative agreements, eligibility is limited to educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and commercial firms. Individuals are not eligible for these awards. Eligibility for TIAs is broader and may include all organizations and individuals, including commercial companies.
- Authorized by
- 10 USC 4001, 10 USC 4021, 10 U.S.C. 4022, 10 U.S.C. 4023
- Program site
- http://www.darpa.mil/cmo ↗
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.
Direct payments
$9.1M
<1%
Grants
$2.8B
66%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
Administering agencies
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