Young Faculty Award (YFA) 2027

The Young Faculty Award (YFA) 2027 program, solicitation DARPARA2701, is an initiative by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to engage junior researchers at U.S. academic and non-profit institutions. The program targets rising stars who have not received significant prior funding from DARPA or the Department of War to develop transformative capabilities for national security. Eligible Principal Investigators must be in a tenure-track position, tenured within three years, or within twelve years of receiving their doctorate. The scope of work focuses on unclassified basic research, specifically highlighting areas such as iterative prompt engineering and alignment, plasma as a dynamic heterostructure layer for electron emission, and scalable thermomechanical resilience across materials and systems. The award structure consists of a 24-month base period with funding up to $500,000, a 12-month Director's Fellowship option up to $500,000, and a U.S. Citizen Graduate Student option up to $225,000, bringing the maximum total funding per award to $1,225,000. The application process is a two-step submission requiring an anonymized executive summary for blind review, followed by a full proposal if encouraged by DARPA. Full proposals must include a technical and management volume, administrative and national policy requirements, and a summary slide. Awardees are required to use the Wide Area Work Flow (WAWF) for electronic invoicing and the Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP) for funding requests. The response deadline for this solicitation is January 13, 2027.