Closed · N0001424SF007 · CFDA 12.300 · Discretionary

Class of 2025 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF)

Federal grant opportunity posted by Office of Naval Research, cataloged on Grants.gov.

$1M-$3M
Award range
Closed
Status
March 14, 2025
Close date
10
Expected awards

The verdict

Class of 2025 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) is a closed discretionary listing from Office of Naval Research that offered $1,000,000 -- $3,000,000 across 10 expected awards. Future funding cycles may be published under the same CFDA number. PlainGrants indexes 285 other opportunities from Office of Naval Research.

$1M-$3M
award range
Closed
application status
10
expected awards
12.300
CFDA program

Archived opportunity record

Class of 2025 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship is closed (last close March 14, 2025). Check the agency catalog for replacement NOFOs. Office of Naval Research still indexes 285 other opportunities here.

According to Grants.gov (extract vintage 2026-08-10), this record reflects the officially published listing. See methodology.

Deadline tracker

Application window closed

Closed March 14, 2025

Posted Jul 29 Closes Mar 14

Est. Total Funding

$30,000,000

Expected Awards

10

Instrument

Grant

Description

Background Before World War I, Dr. Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) was a professor and Dean of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founded a large defense and electronics company. He was a forward-thinking policymaker who, during World War II, went on to serve as the director of the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Scientific Research and Development, coordinating the work of thousands of scientists in the service of ending the war. In his 1945 report to the President of the United States, Science, “The Endless Frontier”, Bush called for an expansion of government support for science, and he pressed for the creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Bush was concerned about how the scientific research supported by the Department of Defense (DoD) during WWII could be sustained with a focus on peacetime goals. He believed that basic research was “the pacemaker of technological progress”. “New products and new processes do not appear full-grown”, Bush wrote. “They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science”. Dr. Bush’s life work embodies the spirit of this research program, formerly known as the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship (NSSEFF). Therefore, in his in his honor, the name was changed to the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) program (https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/955536/dod-debuts-vannevar-bush-faculty-fellowship). Research Objectives The VBFF program is sponsored by the Basic Research Office, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD (R&E)). VBFF supports innovative basic research within academia, as well as opportunities intended to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers for the defense workforce. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) manages the VBFF program for USD (R&E). To accomplish this task, ONR is soliciting proposals for the VBFF program through this FOA. This FOA seeks distinguished researchers for the purpose of conducting innovative basic research in areas of interest to the DoD and fostering long-term relationships between the VBFF Fellows and the DoD.

Multi-door applicant board · 2 Grants.gov types

Grants.gov prints 2 distinct applicant types for Class of 2025 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (Public / state-controlled institutions of higher education; Private institutions of higher education). Filter fit against the official announcement before drafting. The extract does not mark applicant cost-sharing as required. Instrument: Grant. Funding-activity code maps to Science and Technology / R&D (ST). 30 other Office of Naval Research listings share this eligibility-code string (10% of 286).

Code 06
Public / state-controlled institutions of higher education
Code 20
Private institutions of higher education

Codes are Grants.gov eligibility category values from the extract vintage 2026-08-10. Confirm the full eligibility statement on the official listing or the Grants.gov eligibility reference.

Official Listing on Grants.gov

View full details, application forms, and submission instructions.

View on Grants.gov

Agency Contact

Veronica Lacey Team Lead, Grant Officer

What to do next

Class of 2025 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship is closed; use the parent program and agency catalog for the next funding cycle.

  • Browse open federal opportunities in the same category when this listing is closed. Open opportunities
  • Look up CFDA 12.300 across all indexed listings before you commit to this opportunity alone. Eligibility finder
  • Compare award ranges across federal categories before you pick a single CFDA. All categories

Opportunity deadlines and eligibility change on Grants.gov; PlainGrants mirrors the extract and is not the submission system.

Disclaimer: This information is sourced from Grants.gov and SAM.gov and is for informational purposes only. Opportunity details, deadlines, and eligibility requirements change frequently. Always verify current information directly on Grants.gov before applying. PlainGrants is not affiliated with any federal agency.

Data sourced from the SAM.gov Assistance Listings and Grants.gov. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainGrants