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This is a special Notice of Funding Opportunity Announcement (NOFO) sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), which will hereafter generally be referred to as “we”, “us”, “our”, or “AFOSR.” The Fiscal Year 2027 Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) intends to support individual early career scientists and engineers who have received their Ph.D. or equivalent degrees by 01 April 2019 or later showing exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. The program objective is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force and Space Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. Individual awards are made to U.S. institutions of higher education, industrial laboratories, for- profit, or non-profit research organizations where the principal investigator (PI) is employed on a full-time basis and holds a regular, non-contractor position. A YIP PI must be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident. Researchers working at a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), or a Department of War (DoW) Laboratory are not eligible for this competition. YIP awards are funded up to $150,000 per year for three years, for a total of $450,000. No single year may exceed $150,000. Please review the remainder of this announcement for additional information. Under this competition, an anticipated thirty-seven (37) traditionally funded YIPs and three (3) YIPs funded in partnership with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) in the Quantum Information Sciences research discipline may be awarded. There may be potential for an additional 37 YIPs funded from other AFOSR research funding. All actions are based on the availability of funds. Proposers are encouraged to confer with the designated AFOSR Program Officer(s) prior to submitting a full proposal. We will evaluate proposals using an internal review panel. AFOSR reserves the right to select and fund all, some, or none of the proposals from any of the topics below. AFOSR provides no funding for direct reimbursement of proposal development costs. Technical and budget proposals (or any other material) submitted in response to this NOFO will not be returned. It is the policy of AFOSR to treat all white papers and proposals submitted under this NOFO as sensitive competitive information and to disclose their contents only for the purposes of evaluation. White papers briefly summarizing the proposed institution’s ideas are required. Submit white papers to our whitepaper portal, which is linked below. The topic points of contact (POCs) will coordinate to provide feedback on the white papers. The proposals will need to include a data management plan, outlining how samples and data collected in the program will be stored and managed. This includes but is not restricted to issues such as standards for data and metadata collection, content and format, data archiving, database management, and data sharing within, outside the awardee and beyond the lifetime of the grant. This precondition is modeled on the National Science Foundation Data Management Plan requirement (e.g., https://www.nsf.gov/eng/data-management-plans). 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/. IMPORTANT DATES: Pre-proposal inquiries and questions, regarding white papers and the submission of those white papers, must be received in writing by electronic mail to the address(es) of this NOFO not later than 17 September 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time to be considered. The Government will respond to any pre-proposal inquiries or questions via public posting, or individual responses, no later than COB on 24 September 2026. Whitepapers must be received by 09 October 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time via submission to https://afosr.gov1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eKuTqm9qezoDYep to be considered. White paper evaluation is meant to initially assess the capability of a proposed effort. White papers must be no more than five (5) pages in length. References and CV/bios will not count against the page limit. Please review this announcement in its entirety prior to submitting a white paper. The government will respond to the white paper determination before COB on 06 November 2026. Proposals must be received electronically through Grants.gov by 04 December 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time to be considered. We anticipate that we will notify proposers of selection or non-selection for award no later than 26 April 2027. We anticipate awards to be made by 01 May 2027, barring delays.
Funding Opportunity Number: FA955026S0003. Assistance Listing: 12.800. Funding Instrument: G. Category: ST. Award Amount: $150K – $450K per award.
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Or search similar grants →According to the current listing, eligibility includes: Eligible applicants: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education; Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education; Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education; Private institutions of higher education; For-profit organizations other than small businesses. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
The current listing shows $150K – $450K per award. Verify award ceilings, matching requirements, and allowable costs in the official notice.
Applications for Air Force Fiscal Year 2027 Young Investigator Program (YIP) are due December 4, 2026. Build your timeline backwards from this date to cover registrations, approvals, and final submission checks.
Yes — Air Force Fiscal Year 2027 Young Investigator Program (YIP) is offered by Air Force Office of Scientific Research and this listing comes from Grants.gov, an official U.S. federal source. Federal applications generally require registrations (for example SAM.gov or an agency submission portal), so allow extra lead time.
Start from the official opportunity page linked in this listing — it carries the sponsor's submission instructions.
Past winners and funding trends for this program
This Air Force Direct to Phase II SBIR topic funds robotic systems that can perceive, grasp, route and install wire harnesses in unmanned aerial system airframes, one of the hardest remaining problems in aerospace manufacturing automation because cable harnesses are deformable, self-occluding and never present the same geometry twice. The technical content sits squarely in embodied artificial intelligence: learned visual perception of thin deformable objects under poor contrast, pose estimation and tracking through self-occlusion, contact-rich force-controlled manipulation, and policies that generalise across harness variants and airframe configurations rather than being hand-taught per part. The payoff for the Air Force is throughput and cost in UAS production and sustainment, where harness installation is still overwhelmingly manual and is a recognised bottleneck as drone production volumes rise. Because this is a Direct to Phase II topic, the award ceiling is 2,000,000 dollars and there is no feasibility phase, but applicants must demonstrate that they have already completed work equivalent to a Phase I feasibility study, which in practice means prior robotics or manipulation prototypes with documented results rather than a concept. The topic sits in Release 1 of the fiscal year 2027 Department of War SBIR/STTR announcement, which pre-released 7 October 2026, opened 28 October 2026 and closes 25 November 2026 at noon Eastern; applicants should verify the topic number and final close date on the Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal.
Release 1 of the Department of War SBIR/STTR fiscal year 2027 Broad Agency Announcement carries 25 topics, a substantial share of them artificial intelligence, autonomy and robotics work, and it is the single highest-volume non-dilutive funding window open to U.S. deep-tech small businesses this autumn. The cycle pre-released on 7 October 2026, opened for submission on 28 October 2026 and closes 25 November 2026 at 12:00 noon Eastern, giving roughly four weeks of writing time against topics that are written narrowly enough that proposal-topic fit, not general AI capability, decides outcomes. AI and autonomy topics in this release include AI-enabled computer vision for air-to-air refuelling performance assessment and automated pilot debrief, agile wire harness manipulation and installation for unmanned aerial systems, autonomous technical data package to robotic task specification, and fusion of cooperative information sharing for uncrewed air systems. Award structure differs by component and track: Phase I is capped at approximately 300,000 dollars for Air Force and Office of Strategic Weapons topics and 315,000 dollars for Navy topics, while Direct to Phase II topics award up to 2,000,000 dollars and skip the feasibility stage entirely for companies that can already evidence Phase I-equivalent work. STTR topics require a formal research institution partnership with at least 40 percent of work performed by the small business and at least 30 percent by a single research institution. One Army xTech topic runs an earlier white paper deadline of 23 October 2026, so component-specific dates must be checked individually on DSIP.
FOCISAUS is an Air Force Direct to Phase II STTR topic for cooperative information sharing and sensor fusion across teams of uncrewed air systems, the multi-agent autonomy problem that sits between single-platform autopilots and genuine collaborative autonomy. The work funded here covers distributed data fusion across heterogeneous airborne sensors, shared world-model construction when platforms see different parts of the same scene, consistency and conflict resolution between agents holding contradictory tracks, and operation under degraded, intermittent and contested communications where naive sharing schemes either saturate the link or propagate bad state. Because it is an STTR topic, a formal partnership with a U.S. nonprofit research institution is mandatory, with at least 40 percent of the work performed by the small business and at least 30 percent by a single research institution, which makes this a natural fit for a startup paired with a university robotics, estimation or networking group. The Direct to Phase II structure carries a 2,000,000 dollar ceiling and no feasibility phase, so applicants must evidence completed Phase I-equivalent work in multi-agent autonomy or distributed fusion. The topic is part of Release 1 of the Department of War fiscal year 2027 SBIR/STTR announcement, which opened 28 October 2026 and closes 25 November 2026 at 12:00 noon Eastern; confirm topic availability and the live deadline on DSIP before committing to a teaming agreement.
Release 1 pre-released October 7, 2026, opens October 28 and closes November 25 at noon ET. Seven of 13 Air Force SBIR topics are Direct to Phase II at $2M, a new one-proposal-per-topic rule took effect October 1, and the Army xTech topic needs a white paper by October 23.
Read articleThe Air Force Technical Applications Center runs the largest sensor network in the Air Force and an enduring BAA plus a Commercial Solutions Opening that accept white papers year-round. The December 9 industry day at Patrick Space Force Base exists because the submissions it receives are not good enough.
Read articleFA955026S0003 posted September 8 with full proposals due December 4, 2026 — but a five-page white paper is required by October 9, questions close September 17, and the PhD window admits degrees earned after April 1, 2019 only. At $450,000 over three years with no collaborators permitted, this is the most restrictive of the three service early-career programs and the only one with an LPS quantum carve-out.
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