Minerva Research Initiative | WHS AD FOA 21 01

Opportunity Information: Apply for WHS AD FOA 21 01

The Minerva Research Initiative is a Department of Defense grant program designed to strengthen the DoD's long-term understanding of social, cultural, political, and behavioral dynamics that matter for U.S. national security. Its core purpose is to expand the Department's intellectual capital in the social sciences, improve the government's ability to anticipate and respond to future challenges, and build durable, candid working relationships between DoD and the academic social science community. Minerva is framed as basic research with strategic relevance, and it encourages rigorous scholarship that can inform how national security environments evolve rather than short-term, operational problem solving.

This funding opportunity (WHS AD FOA 21 01; CFDA 12.630) is a discretionary grant competition in the science and technology / research and development category. The program brings together universities and other research institutions, including multi-institution and multidisciplinary teams, to pursue projects aligned with DoD-defined interest areas. While the topic descriptions are meant to guide applicants, the solicitation emphasizes that they are not intended to be restrictive and encourages innovative white papers and proposals that still fit within the overall frames of the nine topics.

The competition is organized around nine research topics. These include: (1) Social Implications of Environmental Change, focusing on how environmental shifts affect societies, governance, stability, and security-related outcomes; (2) Resource Competition, Social Cohesion, and Strategic Climate Resilience, looking at how scarcity, competition over resources, and resilience planning influence social cohesion and conflict dynamics; (3) Security Risks in Ungoverned, Semi-Governed, and Differently-Governed Spaces, examining how varying forms of governance or lack of governance create distinct risk environments; (4) Analysis of Foreign Influence Operations in Cross-Cultural Perspective, emphasizing how influence activities work across different cultural contexts; (5) Community Studies on Online and Offline Influence, linking digital and real-world community dynamics to understand persuasion, mobilization, and narrative spread; (6) Computational Social Science Research on Difficult-to-Access Environments, supporting methods and data approaches for settings where direct observation or conventional data collection is hard; (7) Social and Cultural Implications of Artificial Intelligence, addressing how AI changes institutions, norms, labor, legitimacy, and social behavior; (8) Humans and Outer Space, focusing on the social, organizational, cultural, and political dimensions of space-related human activity; and (9) Management and Information in the Defense Environment, which centers on decision-making, organizational processes, and information management relevant to defense contexts.

Applicants may submit proposals as single-investigator projects or as larger collaborative efforts, and the solicitation explicitly notes that teams may be important when expertise is distributed across departments or institutions. For team submissions, the structure must be clear: only one Principal Investigator is named as the responsible technical point of contact, and one institution serves as the primary award recipient for execution purposes. The proposal must spell out partner roles, how work is divided, and how funds are allocated, including any subawards, and these details must align across the narrative and the budget. Across all submissions, the DoD expects the project to clearly articulate its basic research contribution and show how the linked research questions create synergy across disciplines.

Key logistics in the source notice include an anticipated total of about 12 awards with an award ceiling of $1,000,000 per award. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open to any entity type), subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the full announcement. The opportunity was created May 6, 2021, with an original closing date of September 29, 2021, under the Department of Defense.

• The Department of Defense in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Minerva Research Initiative" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.630.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 06, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 29, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for WHS AD FOA 21 01

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