Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI) - ARMY SUBMISSION | W911NF18S0003

Opportunity Information: Apply for W911NF18S0003

The Fiscal Year 2019 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI) - Army Submission is a competitive grant opportunity run through the Department of the Army (Army Materiel Command) and administered for these topics by the Army Research Office (ARO). It is designed to fund basic research in science and engineering at U.S. institutions of higher education, with an emphasis on ambitious, high-payoff work that can expand fundamental understanding in areas tied to long-term national security interests. In this context, "basic research" is defined in line with the DoD Financial Management Regulation as research aimed at increasing foundational knowledge of phenomena and observable facts, without being driven by a specific near-term product or application, but with the expectation that it lays groundwork for future technological progress and capability.

A central feature of MURI is that it prioritizes multidisciplinary research teams rather than single-investigator projects. The program is meant for efforts where multiple traditional disciplines genuinely interact, so the team structure is not just a collection of separate tasks but an integrated approach that can accelerate advances in a topic area. Teams can be built across multiple universities or across different departments within the same university, depending on where the needed expertise sits. Each proposal must identify one Principal Investigator (PI) who serves as the primary technical point of contact, and there must be one primary institution that receives and manages the award; the PI must be from that primary institution. Proposals are expected to clearly spell out how participating institutions will contribute, what each role will be, and how funds will be allocated, including any subawards, with consistent detail in both the narrative and the budget.

For the FY 2019 Army submission, the solicitation calls for white papers and proposals aligned to specific ARO-managed MURI topics (Topics 9 through 16). While the announcement notes that detailed topic write-ups and the assigned Topic Chiefs are provided in the solicitation, it also emphasizes that those write-ups are meant to guide applicants rather than constrain them, and that creative, innovative approaches are encouraged as long as they address the intent of the topic. The Army topics listed are: Topic 9, "Clearing Your Head: The Glymphatic System and Restorative Effects of Sleep"; Topic 10, "Foundations of Emergent Computation and Self-Organized Adaptation"; Topic 11, "Multi-layer Network Modeling of Plant and Pollen Distribution across Space and Time"; Topic 12, "Near Field Radiative Heat Energy Transfer between Nanostructured Materials"; Topic 13, "Networked Interactions Governing Community Dynamics"; Topic 14, "Prediction and Control in Particulate Systems"; Topic 15, "Reactive and non-Reactive Scattering from Targeted Molecular Quantum States"; and Topic 16, "Unified Decision Theory: From Bounded to Unbounded Rationality." Collectively, these topics span life science and neuroscience, computation and complex adaptive systems, ecological and environmental network modeling, nanoscale heat transfer, complex community dynamics, particulate and granular system control, molecular quantum dynamics, and decision theory, reflecting the program's broad investment in fundamental science with potential defense relevance.

Eligibility is intentionally narrow on the applicant side: proposals may be submitted only by U.S. institutions of higher education (including DoD degree-granting institutions) with science and/or engineering programs. University-affiliated entities can participate as long as they are part of an eligible U.S. university and are not designated as an FFRDC, UARC, or other university-affiliated laboratory category that would make them ineligible under this competition. Organizations that are not eligible applicants, such as companies, DoD laboratories, FFRDCs, and foreign entities, are allowed to collaborate scientifically, but they cannot receive MURI funds directly and cannot receive MURI funds through a subaward. If a collaboration truly requires funding for an ineligible partner, the mechanism described is a separate supplemental proposal from that organization attached to the primary MURI proposal; it can be reviewed using the MURI criteria by the Topic Chief, and if it is approved, it may be supported using non-MURI or non-government funds rather than the MURI award itself.

Key administrative details included with the source record are: Funding Opportunity Number W911NF18S0003; it is a discretionary grant under CFDA 12.431, categorized under Science and Technology and other Research and Development. The opportunity lists an original closing date of 2018-10-16 and a creation date of 2018-03-27. The public summary does not provide an award ceiling or the expected number of awards in the fields shown, so applicants would typically need to consult the full solicitation for funding ranges, period of performance, and submission requirements beyond the basic structure described here.

• The Dept of the Army -- Materiel Command in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI) - ARMY SUBMISSION" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.431.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-03-27.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-10-16. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

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