MXO Office-wide Innovative Solutions Opening

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Multi X Office (MXO) is seeking revolutionary research ideas through solicitation DARPA-PS-26-115 to enable advances in science, devices, or systems. This long-term open call focuses on high-risk, high-reward technologies across three primary thrust areas: beyond-CMOS foundational materials and components, indigenous development tools and supply chains, and new modalities for mission effects. The program specifically excludes evolutionary improvements to existing practices and targets technology maturity levels between TRL 2 and 5. Awards will be made on a rolling basis using Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) and Experimental Transaction Agreements (ETAs) pursuant to 10 U.S.C. sections 4021 through 4023. The submission process is a two-phase effort requiring an initial abstract of no more than six pages submitted via the Broad Agency Announcement Tool (BAAT). Only proposers who are invited following a scientific review of their abstracts may submit full proposals, with a final response deadline of June 4, 2027. Evaluation criteria prioritize overall scientific and technical merit, potential contribution to the DARPA mission, and budget realism. Proposers must provide a Rough Order of Magnitude cost in their abstracts. Key requirements include a Fundamental Research Risk-Based Security Review for all non-FAR-based instruments and mandatory organizational conflict of interest mitigation plans for any University Affiliated Research Centers involved as prime or subawardees.