Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT)

Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) program (NOFO: DE-FOA-0003554) is sponsored by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) from the Department of Energy's Office of Science aims to accelerate breakthroughs in critical minerals, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing through fundamental energy technology research.

Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) (DE-FOA-0003614) is sponsored by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). This program supports fundamental research at Energy Frontier Research Centers to accelerate scientific breakthroughs in areas underpinning energy technologies, including alternative energy. Pre-applications are due April 1, 2026.

Researching the technical, social & economic factors impacting the energy performance of Smart Buildings (Built4People Partnership) is sponsored by European Commission — Horizon Europe. Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: Increased evidence of factors such as physiological, behavioural, social, environmental and cultural that influence how different user and demographic groups perceive and use smart, secured, integrated energy efficient building systems, and how it affects the building whole-life cycle and energy savings, as well as occupant satisfaction, health and well-being; The design and operation of smart building systems and smart buildings are improved making them more user-friendly and effective. Scope: Significant investments have been made in developing hardware and software for smart buildings. There is still limited understanding how smart buildings solutions impact the energy performance of buildings and users’ comfort in practice. Research is required on the technical, social, and economic factors that influence how different groups – defined by their social, educational, age, and financial status – use and interact with smart buildings and systems. The whole-life cycle impacts of smart building have to be better understood, from design and construction to operation, maintenance, end-of-life and circular re-use, to ensure delivery of sustainable and cost-effective smart building solutions. Proposals are expected to address all of the following: Research and quantify how existing and novel smart building solutions meet the needs of different social and economic groups (based on their gender, age, educational and financial status, etc.); Identify major barriers and enablers for the use of smart building solutions among different socio-demographic and socio-economic groups, and research how it impacts the energy performance of buildings; Validate of findings in at least three different categories of existing buildings (e.g. private residential, social housing, commercial building, office building, etc.), each one in a different Member State or Associated Country. Develop actionable recommendations tailored to key stakeholders (such as equipment providers, architects, building owners and facility managers) to support the design, deployment and operation of inclusive, user-centric smart building solutions. This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities. This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘People-centric sustainable built environment’ (Built4People). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to contribute to the objectives of Built4People, transfer knowledge to its network of innovation clusters [1] and report on results in support of the monitoring of the Built4People KPIs. Selected proposals could consider the involvement of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) whose contribution could consist of scientific advice and technical analysis of solutions and technologies, support to the transfer of research output to standards, and access to the European Laboratory for Structural Assessment research infrastructure for full-scale testing of buildings. null Activities are expected to achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. Activities may start at any TRL. [1] https://built4people.eu/b4pic_network/ Programme areas: Horizon Europe (HORIZON), Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, Climate, Energy and Mobility, Buildings and Industrial Facilities in Energy Transition