Pioneering the Next Generation of Defense Research
On June 3, 2025, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), through its Defense Sciences Office (DSO), announced an open solicitation under Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) HR001125S0013. This office-wide BAA serves as a mechanism for DARPA to identify and fund a wide variety of revolutionary science and technology projects that align with national security imperatives. The solicitation seeks groundbreaking approaches to manufacturing, devices, processing, and systems that can drive game-changing capabilities for the Department of Defense (DoD), while specifically avoiding incremental advances to existing technologies.
Solicitation Goals and Technical Scope
This BAA invites innovative proposals that advance DARPA’s mission by targeting specific technical domains that align with one or more of DSO’s four core technical thrust areas:
- Materials, Manufacturing, and Structures – Breaking the trade-off between performance and efficiency by exploring revolutionary materials, energetic systems, superconductors, and propulsion technologies.
- Sensing, Measuring, and Affecting – Achieving orders-of-magnitude improvement in operational capabilities by overcoming barriers limiting the performance of sensing, measurement, and control.
- Math, Computation, and Processing – Enabling quantum, reimagining classical, and building entirely new paradigms in computation utilizing hardware implementation and new approaches to representation and computation.
- Complex, Dynamic, and Intelligent Systems – Developing novel scientific capabilities to adapt to system types for which traditional reductionist and statistical methods fail. Systems of particular interest include the foundations of intelligence, homeostatic mechanisms, global systems, and human-AI ecosystems.
While proposals need not fall neatly into one of these categories, proposers are encouraged to specify the technical thrust area(s) their research supports.
Important Dates and Submission Information
DARPA has implemented a rolling submission and review process under this BAA, utilizing Executive Summary, Abstract, and Full Proposal submissions. Prior to submission of a full proposal, proposers are strongly encouraged to submit an Executive Summary or Abstract to ascertain their project’s fit to DARPA’s mission. Submission of an Executive Summary will result in a statement of interest (or lack thereof) from DARPA, while submission of an Abstract will result in a statement of interest (or lack thereof) and additional feedback, including the rationale for that decision.
- Questions Due: May 8, 2026, 4:00 PM ET
- Executive Summaries, Abstracts, and Full Proposals Due: Rolling basis through June 2, 2026, 4:00 PM ET
Funding Details and Award Structure
DARPA anticipates multiple awards under this announcement. For select projects with total costs not exceeding $2,000,000, DARPA offers an accelerated award option. This will allow proposals meeting specific criteria to be awarded within 30 days of selection.
Driving Strategic Surprise in Defense Science
The DSO Office-wide BAA is more than a funding opportunity; it is an invitation to fundamentally shift what is possible in defense technology. By pushing research to the edges of scientific feasibility, DARPA aims to build disruptive capabilities and mitigate the risks posed by global technological acceleration. Proposers are encouraged to pursue high-risk, high-reward concepts that could lead to paradigm shifts in sensing, materials, computation, or complex system behavior. These developments could ultimately secure operational advantages for U.S. forces.
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