This is a special Notice of Funding Opportunity Announcement (NOFO) sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), which will hereafter generally be referred to as “we, us, our, or AFOSR.” We announce the solicitation for a three-year program entitled “Frontiers in Materials and Nanostructures: AI-Driven Discovery, Quantum Geometry, and Energy-Efficient Information Technologies.”

The US Air Force-Taiwan Nanoscience Program is one of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s (AFOSR) International Research Initiatives. This international program is focused on shaping the direction and advancing the state-of-the-art in nanoscience research. Starting in 2002, grants were provided to Taiwan investigators to focus on basic research in specific nanoscience areas of interest as described by program managers at AFOSR or at the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). In 2011 the program evolved to become a collaborative effort to pair US and Taiwan investigators to conduct basic science research on topics of common interest. In order to continue to provide opportunities for scientists to collaborate in emerging technology areas and to leverage their intellectual resources, AFOSR and NSTC are offering a new program dedicated to frontiers in materials and nanostructures in a variety of topic areas.

This is an open call with open competition; therefore, all applications are welcome. Initial applications (pre-proposals) are required to participate and must be submitted by 18 November. Pre-proposals must have two investigators - one from a US institution or DoD Lab, and one from a Taiwan institution. Teams consisting of a US investigator and his/her counterpart from Taiwan should submit a joint pre-proposal (white paper) indicating what their collaboration could accomplish with three years of funding. Each US-Taiwan pair is to submit only one pre-proposal. The same pre-proposal is to be submitted to both AFOSR and NSTC. Pre-proposals are required to be eligible for this funding opportunity, and pre-proposals are due by 18 November. Please see the Eligibility section below for further details.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Applicants should be alert for any amendments that may modify the announcement. Amendments to the original Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) will be posted to the Grants.gov Webpage: https://www.grants.gov/.