Greetings,
We are excited to share this funding opportunity from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). The Air Force Young Investigator Program (YIP) aims to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for junior investigators to recognize the Air Force and Space Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. More information about the award can be found in the synopsis and links below. For a full list of currently open opportunities that have been announced through our office, please visit our Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.
- OSP Deadline: Review not required at the White Paper stage
Departments or areas may require additional time for proposal review and submission. Please discuss a timeline with your departmental or FORA grants administrator.
- Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (required): October 9, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
- Award Amount: Up to $150,000/year for three years. At the discretion of the Program Officer and subject to the availability of funds and satisfactory progress, PIs may be funded up to an additional $300,000 over a period of up to two years.
Program Overview
The Fiscal Year 2027 Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) will provide support for individual scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees after April 1, 2019, and have demonstrated exceptional ability and promise for conducting revolutionary basic research. The program’s objective is to foster creative and innovative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for junior investigators to recognize the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force missions and related challenges in science and engineering.
Under this competition, an anticipated thirty-seven traditionally funded YIPs and three YIPs funded in partnership with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) in the Quantum Information Sciences research discipline may be awarded. There may be potential for an additional 37 YIPs supported with other AFOSR research funding. All actions are based on the availability of funds.
Priority Areas
- AFOSR seeks unclassified proposals in the research areas of interest identified in its most recent Broad Agency Announcement (BAA),
Research Interests of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Areas of interest include topics in: engineering and complex systems; information and networks; physical sciences; and bio-cognition.
- AFOSR updates its BAA annually in the March/April time frame. Applicants are advised to coordinate their topic ideas with the appropriate Program Officer (PO) to ensure it will still be relevant to the Air Force when awards are made.
- AFOSR has partnered with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) to award additional outstanding YIP proposals in the field of gate-based quantum computing under the “Quantum Information Sciences” research portfolio area (Section A.3.f of the AFOSR open BAA). Proposals for both experimental and theoretical research are encouraged. The primary focus is on innovative research to advance the state of the art in quantum computing systems by understanding and mitigating challenges, developing revolutionary new approaches, tracking, characterizing, and reducing noise, and developing supporting technology. Specific research topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
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- understanding and mitigating the impact of ionizing radiation on qubits,
- improving the gate and readout speed and fidelity in multi-qubit systems,
- investigating promising new qubit modalities that address existing qubit challenges,
- developing novel control and readout schemes, and
- exploring schemes for modular quantum computing.
Eligibility Criteria
- Awards are made to U.S. institutions of higher education, industrial laboratories, for-profit, or non-profit research organizations where the individual principal investigator (PI) is employed on a full-time basis and holds a regular, non-contractor, career-competitive, or tenure-track position.
- YIP PIs must be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident.
- Applicants must have received their Doctorate no earlier than April 1, 2019.
- No domestic or foreign collaborators, funded or non-funded, are allowed for this single investigator award.
White Paper Materials
- Cover Page, to include the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) number, proposal research topic title (research discipline area), proposer’s point of contact information (name, telephone number, email address)
- White Paper (5 page maximum, Times New Roman or Garamond 12 point font, 1 inch margins, 1.5 line spacing)
- Identification of proposed research and issues
- Potential impact on Department of Air Force (DAF) and Department of War (DoW) capabilities
- Potential team members and development plans
- Proposed technical approaches – hypothesis, theories, concepts, approaches, data measurements, and analysis, etc.
- All publications and presentations must be identified
- Curriculum Vitae
- References
Selection Criteria
- AFOSR Program Officers and subject matter experts will review submissions to assess the technical quality of the project, relevance of the proposed research to the portfolio descriptions in this NOFO, relevance of the work to Air Force, Space Force, and DoW needs, consistency with administration priorities, and the potential of the research balanced against the available funding resources of a given portfolio.
- AFOSR expects the highest standards of scientific rigor, integrity, and adherence to appropriate tenets of Gold Standard Science.
Additional Information and Resources
Proposers are encouraged to confer with the AFOSR Program Officer(s) listed in the open BAA for their research topic area prior to submitting their application materials. Pre-proposal inquiries and questions must be received by email to AFOSR before September 17, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET to be considered.
White papers briefly summarizing the proposed institution’s ideas are required. They must be submitted through AFOSR's white paper portal. White paper evaluation is meant to initially assess the capability of a proposed effort. The topic points of contact will coordinate to provide feedback on submitted white papers and may extend an invitation to submit a YIP proposal. White paper determinations will be shared by November 6, 2026. Full proposals are due by December 4, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET. AFOSR anticipates notifying proposers of selection or non-selection for award no later than April 26, 2027, with awards to be made by May 1, 2027.
Recent Harvard recipients include: Jia Liu (SEAS, 2021), Finale Doshi-Velez (SEAS, 2016), Na Li (SEAS, 2016), Kang-Kuen Ni (CCB, 2015), and Theodore Betley (CCB, 2010).
Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to FAS Research Development. |
