The Department of Defense will award a total of $17.6 million in funding under the Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or DEPSCoR, whose aim is to strengthen the basic research infrastructure at higher education institutions in underutilized states and territories.
The DOD announced Tuesday that 27 teams from academia have been selected as program beneficiaries: 25 from the DEPSCoR Research Collaboration competition and 2 from the DEPSCoR Capacity Building competition.
The Research Collaboration competition seeks to support science and engineering research relevant to the needs of the DOD while the Capacity Building competition seeks to bolster the R&D capabilities of higher education institutions in eligible states and territories.
Each winning Research Collaboration team will receive up to $600,000 over three years while each Capacity Building team will receive up to $1.5 million over two years.
Bindu Nair, director of the DOD’s Basic Research Office, explained the goal of DEPSCoR, saying, “[The program] aims to increase the number of academics pursing research in DOD-relevant areas, while enhancing the science and engineering capacity of their institutions into the long term.”
“It is crucial that we build a Department of Defense research infrastructure that strategically uses the research capabilities found across the country,” Nair added.