SPURRING PROJECTS TO ADVANCE ENERGY RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE SWIFTLY (SPARKS)
Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy
About the Grant
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) provides a continuing opportunity for the rapid support of early-stage applied research to explore innovative new concepts with the potential for transformational and disruptive changes in energy technology. Spurring Projects to Advance Energy Research and Knowledge Swiftly (SPARKS) awards are intended to be flexible and may take the form of analyses or exploratory research that provides the agency with useful information for the subsequent development of focused technology programs. SPARKS awards may also support proof-of-concept research to develop a unique technology concept, either in an area not currently supported by the agency or as a potential enhancement to an ongoing focused technology program. Applications must propose concepts that are not covered by open ARPA-E focused FOAs and that do not represent incremental improvements over existing technology.
SPARKS awards are defined as single-phase efforts of durations of 18 months or less with a total project cost of $500,000 or less and will be issued through Grants. ARPA-E expects to make approximately $10 million per fiscal year available for new awards, subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
This announcement is purposely broad in scope to encourage the submission of the most innovative ideas in energy technology to support transformative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary mechanism, which is through the solicitation of research projects in focused technology programs.ARPA-E’s focused programs target specific areas of technology that the agency has identified through extensive interaction with the appropriate external stakeholders. The focused programs have significant potential impact on one or more of the statutory goals described in Section I.A of the FOA. Awards made in response to the solicitation for focused programs support the aggressive technical targets established in that solicitation. Taken in total, ARPA-E’s focused programs cover a broad swath of energy technologies and applications.
Notes
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