Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology Delores Etter announced plans today to award $40.2 million to academic institutions to support the purchase of research instrumentation. The 221 awards to 100 academic institutions are expected to range from about $50,000 to $1,000,000 with an average award of $182,000. All awards are subject to the successful completion of negotiations between Department of Defense (DoD) research offices and the individual academic institutions.
The awards are being made under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). The DURIP supports the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new university capabilities to perform cutting-edge defense research. The DURIP meets a critical need by enabling DoD-supported university researchers to purchase scientific equipment costing $50,000 or more. The researchers generally have difficulty purchasing relatively expensive instruments under their research contracts and grants.
This announcement is the result of a merit competition for DURIP funding conducted by four research offices: the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and Research and Engineering Directorate of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The offices solicited proposals from university investigators working in selected areas of importance to the DoD, such as information technology, remote sensing, propulsion, electronics and electro-optics, advanced materials, and ocean science and engineering. In response to the solicitation, the research offices received about 700 proposals requesting more than $150 million in support for research equipment.
The complete list of winning proposers may be obtained by accessing the World Wide Web at: http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2000/durip02082000_bt057-00.html.
