The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released its 2025 solicitation  for the Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program, and a webinar is scheduled for Thursday, November 21, from 2-3 p.m. EST, to explain review criteria for the 2025 DMREF competition, considerations for preparing a compelling proposal, and changes from the 2023 DMREF solicitation. The webinar will conclude with a question-and-answer session. Registration is required to attend. The webinar will be recorded and made publicly available. Further information about the DMREF program can be found at the DMREF website.

DMREF is the primary program though which NSF participates in the federal Materials Genome Initiative which has the mission of getting advanced materials to market faster and cheaper than what is possible through traditional methods. This will be accomplished by harnessing the power of data and computational tools in concert with experiment and theory. DMREF will accordingly support activities that significantly accelerate the materials discovery-to-use timeline by building the fundamental knowledge base needed to advance the design, discovery, development, or manufacturability of materials with desirable properties or functionality.

This solicitation is open to all materials research topics and is responsive to the recent National Academies 2023 Report, “NSF Efforts to Achieve the Nation’s Vision for the Materials Genome Initiative.” DMREF encourages input and participation from the full spectrum of talent that society has to offer which includes underrepresented and underserved communities. DMREF proposals are from small teams of typically 3-5 PIs and expected to range from $1.5 - $2.0 M over a duration of four years. The submission window is from January 21 – February 4, 2025.

This solicitation represents a crosscutting activity involving NSF’s Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), Engineering (ENG), Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE), and Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP). DMREF will continue partnerships with the following federal agencies: Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Naval Research (ONR), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC), and the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL). New in 2025, opportunities have been introduced for collaboration with the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and Germany’s Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

View the Solicitation.