ONR and AFOSR FY26 Young Investigator Programs (YIPs)

June 20, 2025
Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) released their much-anticipated solicitations for the fiscal year (FY) 2026 Young Investigator Programs (YIPs). Both solicitations seek research proposals across a span of defense-related science and engineering research topic areas. Lewis-Burke strongly recommends that interested faculty reach out to the appropriate program officer to discuss research proposals ahead of submission. 

ONR YIP

  • Each investigator must have received a PhD or equivalent degree on or after January 1, 2018.
  • Individual awards will be funded at a maximum of $750,000 over a three-year period of performance.
  • White papers are not being solicited this year. Full proposals are due by August 1, 2025.
  • See Lewis-Burke's report.


AFOSR YIP

  • Each investigator must have received a PhD or equivalent degree on or after April 1, 2018.
  • Individual awards will be funded at a maximum of $450,000 over a three-year period of performance.
  • There will be 2 additional awards funded in the Quantum Information Sciences research topic area.
  • White papers must be submitted by July 25, 2025, and full proposals are due by September 19, 2025.
  • See Lewis-Burke's report.


Unlike the ONR and AFOSR YIPs, the Army Research Office (ARO) offers its Early Career Program (ECP) through its open Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) here.

Topics

Biological Sciences topic page, Computing, Data Science & AI/ML topic page, Early-Career Opps topic page, Energy, Environment, & Sustainability topic page, Engineering topic page, Federal Funding Opportunity topic page, Math & Physical Sciences topic page