FY26 Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR) – Research Collaboration (RC)
Funding opportunity: NOFOAFRLAFOSR20260004
Agency: Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), for the Department of Defense Basic Research Office
Status: Open. The mandatory White Paper stage is currently open.
Mandatory White Paper deadline: October 12, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time through RunGrants.
Invited full proposal deadline: April 5, 2027 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time through Grants.gov. Full proposals are by invitation only after White Paper review.
Funding: Up to $14.4 million total, approximately 24 awards, up to $600,000 total cost per award over three years, generally up to $200,000 total cost per year. No cost sharing or matching is required.
Program focus
DEPSCoR Research Collaboration builds basic science and engineering research capacity at institutions of higher education in eligible states and territories. The FY26 competition includes twelve DoD basic-research topic areas, including Space Bioscience, Dynamic Data and Information Processing, Condensed Matter Physics, Unsteady Aerodynamics and Turbulent Flows, Earth Materials and Processes, Dynamical Influences on Performance, Wireless Communications Networks, Electrochemistry, Nonlinear Transforms for Dynamical Systems, Social Cognition in Local Communities, Shock Mitigation for Warfighter Protection, and research on efficient packaging and deployment of unmanned aircraft systems.
Eligibility
The application must be built around one Applicant/PI and one Collaborator/co-PI. The Applicant must be a full-time faculty member who has never served as PI on a prior DoD directly funded research prime award. The Collaborator must provide active mentorship and must have served as PI on a DoD directly funded research prime award active between October 1, 2018 and September 30, 2026. Both researchers must satisfy the tenure or tenure-track requirements in the NOFO and be associated with qualifying institutions of higher education in an eligible DEPSCoR state or territory.
The current federal listing identifies eligible institutions in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. FFRDCs and Federal agencies, including military schools, cannot receive funding under this announcement.
Submission process and required documents
The application is a three-stage process: RunGrants registration, mandatory White Paper and supporting-document submission through RunGrants, and an invited full proposal through Grants.gov. Applicants should complete the current RunGrants eligibility checklist before submission. The White Paper package includes the White Paper, a prior Collaborator prime research award document, and qualifying tenure or tenure-track letter(s) when applicable. The White Paper itself includes a cover page, abstract, program description narrative, collaboration composition statement, basic research statement, human-subject or vertebrate-animal statement when applicable, CVs for the Applicant and Collaborator, and prior DoD research-funding lists. The current NOFO also specifies file-format, page-limit, naming, research-security, disclosure, and proposal-package requirements that applicants must follow exactly.
Current amendments
The controlling federal opportunity record was updated September 16, 2026 and lists Amendment 4 and a current FY26 DEPSCoR FAQ in addition to the original NOFO and Amendments 1 through 3. Applicants should use the current federal listing and all posted amendments and FAQs when preparing White Papers or invited full proposals.
Atlas fit and routing
This is a strong higher-education and research-capacity opportunity with an explicit healthcare-adjacent publication pathway in the authoritative FY26 DEPSCoR RC NOFO: Topic 1, Space Bioscience, covers life-science research on living systems and biomaterials, while Topic 6, Dynamical Influences on Performance, covers affective, cognitive, behavioral, and human-performance processes. Dr. Miltie is not a standalone eligible prime applicant under the published faculty/IHE structure. Organization-specific applicant execution should be routed to the applicable state lane for qualifying institutions and faculty teams, using the exact federal identifier and current amendment set.