(December 15, 2022) Today, Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) released a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) on Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR). It seeks applications from institutions historically underrepresented in the SC portfolio, including non-R1 minority serving institutions (MSIs) and emerging research institutions, to perform basic research in fields supported by SC. It aims to build research capacity, infrastructure, and expertise at these institutions through mutually beneficial relationships between applicants and DOE national laboratories, SC scientific user facilities, or R1 MSIs. The topics span the entire SC portfolio, and quantum information science is included in several programs:
- Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), Advanced Computing Technologies. Topics of interest include:
- Research to evaluate the suitability of specific quantum computing hardware architectures or devices for science applications, including resource estimates for quantum computing applications of interest to SC.
- Theoretical methods and software tools to assess the performance of real-world quantum processors, facilitate device-specific optimization of individual operations ranging from state preparation and measurement through gate implementation and compilation, suppress noise, mitigate crosstalk, control errors, and maintain optimally high-fidelity operations in the absence of formal error correction.
- Proof-of-concept demonstrations of technology required for distributing quantum entanglement in a multi-node network.
- Theoretical explorations of possible applications of a quantum network for advancing scientific research.
- Nuclear Physics (NP), R&D in Quantum Information Science (QIS) and the QIS Research and Innovation for Nuclear Science is an initiative to identify, prioritize, and coordinate emerging opportunities in both fundamental research and applied challenges at the interface of Nuclear Physics and Quantum Information Science and Technology (QIST). NP’s Quantum Horizons emphasizes the science-first approach and supports research that could, in the long-term, have a transformative impact on the NP mission area and/or advance QIS development enabled by NP-supported science, technologies, and laboratory infrastructure. This subprogram specifically encourages exploitation of the interdisciplinary nature of Quantum Computing and QIST to expand the frontiers of NP-supported research.
- High Energy Physics (HEP), Quantum Information Science for High Energy Physics Research, a new research area where innovative solutions to scientific discovery are developed through partnerships with the wider quantum information science community to advance the HEP science drivers, as identified by P5, the program mission of HEP, and the SC quantum information science initiative.
The FOA is available at https://science.osti.gov/grants/FOAs/-/media/grants/pdf/foas/2023/SC_FOA_0002931.pdf.