Federal grant programs / Department of Energy

Stewardship Science Grant Program (81.112)

Also known as Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Programs (SSAP)

• Awarded, FY 2021 to 2025$634 million
• Grant awards128
• Typical award$450,000
• Awarded in FY 2025$137 million
• Size rank316 of 1,823
• Type of assistanceCooperative agreements, project grants

Key findings

• Annual funding rose from $117 million in fiscal 2021 to $137 million in fiscal 2025.
• It is the 316th largest of 1,823 federal grant programs by five-year awards.
• The 20 largest recipients received 98% of the money.
• Awards went to recipients in 27 states and territories.

What the program funds

(1) To grow the U.S. scientific community through university involvement in areas of fundamental science and technology relevant to stockpile stewardship; (2) to promote and sustain scientific interactions between the academic community and scientists at the NNSA laboratories; (3) to train scientists in specific areas of long-term research relevant to stockpile stewardship; (4) to increase the availability of unique experimental facilities sited at NNSA's laboratories to the academic community, particularly for collaborations in areas of relevance to stockpile stewardship; and (5) to develop and maintain a long-term recruiting pipeline to NNSA's laboratories by increasing the visibility of NNSA's Defense Program's scientific activities to the U.S. faculty and student communities.

From the federal Assistance Listing. Read the full listing on SAM.gov.

Open opportunities

No opportunity under this program is open or forecast on Grants.gov right now. Programs often post once a year, so the funding history below shows what to expect.

Rules from the program listing

Who can apply

Some solicitations are open to institutions of higher education only and others include nonprofit organizations and for profit commercial organizations. See individual funding opportunity announcements for details on eligibility.

What the money can and cannot pay for

Financial support in whole or in part may be provided for such purposes as the salaries, materials and supplies, equipment, travel, publication costs, training costs, and services required for conducting research, training, related activities, and advanced technology projects or assessments. Funding is provided for basic and applied research in the field of physical science in support of the DOE stockpile stewardship program. Restrictions on use of funds depend on grant provisions. Funding is provided for the purpose of exploring an idea that does not unnecessarily duplicate work already in progress or contemplated by DOE, is not already known to DOE, or has previously unrecognized merit. Some solicitations are open to institutions of higher education only. ;

Matching requirements

This program has no statutory formula. Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Award range and average, in the agency's words

grants $50,000 - $750,000 per year Cooperative agreements $1,000,000-$83,000,000 per year

Examples of funded projects

Fiscal Year2026: Funding may be used to fund grants or cooperative agreements to conduct fundamental science and technology research of relevance to stockpile stewardship. Some technical areas of interest are properties of materials under extreme conditions, low energy nuclear science, high energy density physics, and radiochemistry.

Quoted from the program's federal Assistance Listing. The notice of funding opportunity is the official source for each competition's rules.

Who usually wins

Colleges and universities received 97% of the money, nonprofits 3.0%.

By state

19 states have a page for this program: those that received at least $1 million or 10 awards.

Award amounts are federal obligations reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal 2021 to 2025; see how our data works.