The Department of Defense (DoD) today announced plans to award 33 research grants to 27 universities totaling about $15 million in fiscal year 2005 and about $29.2 million per year starting in fiscal year 2006 for a total of $146.6 million over five years. These academic institutions will receive the grants to conduct multidisciplinary research in 26 topic areas of basic science and engineering which will be made under the DoD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program.

All awards are subject to the successful completion of negotiations between DoD research offices and the academic institutions.

The MURI program is designed to address large multidisciplinary topic areas representing exceptional opportunities for future DoD applications and technology options. The awards will provide long-term support for research, graduate students and laboratory instrumentation development that supports specific science and engineering research themes vital to national defense.

The average award will be $900-thousand a year over a three-year period. Two additional years of funding will be possible as options, bringing the total award to five years. Out-year funding is subject to satisfactory progress in the research and the availability of funding appropriations.

This announcement is the result of a rigorous competition over many months under the MURI program. In response to the MURI broad agency announcement solicitation, many letters of intent to submit proposals were received leading to 121 full proposals which were evaluated by DoD technical expert teams.

The list of projects selected for fiscal year 2005 funding may be found on the Web at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2005/d20050228muri.pdf.