Fiscal Year 2025 Distinguished Early Career Program | DE FOA 0003311

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003311

The Fiscal Year 2025 Distinguished Early Career Program (DECP) is a competitive grant opportunity from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), designed to support standout early-career faculty who are just beginning to build their independent research programs. DECP is positioned as NE's most prestigious early-career award, with the central goal of providing stable, multi-year style support (as implied by the program intent) that helps a promising faculty member establish an impactful research group, launch innovative research directions, and develop education and training approaches that strengthen the future nuclear energy workforce. The program is aimed at enabling recipients to take on ambitious, forward-looking work that can shape the next generation of nuclear energy innovation, rather than only funding a narrow, short-term project.

A key feature of this funding opportunity is that applications must include a clear, integrated research and education plan. The proposal is expected to highlight the applicant's strengths and provide a coherent vision for how the funded effort will build both the faculty member's research trajectory and the supporting infrastructure around it. That includes not only the research agenda itself, but also the development of curriculum, educational outcomes, and training opportunities that directly contribute to preparing students and early-career professionals to enter nuclear energy fields. In other words, the DECP is not solely about technical progress; it also emphasizes how the applicant will contribute to talent development and capacity-building in nuclear energy through teaching innovations, mentoring, and workforce preparation activities aligned with the proposed research.

The opportunity is restricted to higher education institutions, with eligibility listed for public and state-controlled institutions of higher education as well as private institutions of higher education. While the award is intended to recognize and support individual distinguished early-career faculty, the eligible applicant entity is the institution, which typically submits on behalf of the faculty principal investigator according to federal grant norms. NE explicitly encourages applications from all eligible candidates and emphasizes outreach to women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities, signaling an intent to broaden participation in nuclear energy research and leadership.

Program alignment is also clearly defined: proposed activities are required to focus on NE mission areas. The notice does not list those mission areas in the excerpt provided, but it establishes that responsiveness to NE's priorities is a mandatory condition. This means applicants should frame both the research thrust and the education and workforce components around the objectives that NE is actively pursuing in nuclear energy technology, safety, sustainability, and related innovation areas, as described in the full funding opportunity announcement.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary funding opportunity using the grant instrument type, categorized under the Energy funding activity area, with CFDA (Assistance Listing) number 81.121. The funding opportunity number is DE FOA 0003311, and the administering agency office is identified as the Idaho Field Office. The original application closing date is listed as August 6, 2024. The maximum award amount (award ceiling) is $800,000. The posting also lists "ExpectedAwards: 0," which can appear in some listings as a placeholder or because the number of awards is not specified in the summarized record; applicants typically need to consult the full FOA text to understand anticipated selection counts, project periods, and other key details.

Overall, the DECP can be understood as a high-prestige early-career faculty award intended to accelerate a new independent investigator's ability to establish a durable and influential program in nuclear energy. It prioritizes originality, long-term impact, and a well-developed plan for educating and training the next generation of nuclear energy professionals, all tightly connected to DOE NE mission needs.

• The Idaho Field Office in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Fiscal Year 2025 Distinguished Early Career Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.121.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-05-20.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-08-06. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $800,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for DE FOA 0003311

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