The Defense Department has chosen 23 multidisciplinary research projects to receive grants worth a total of $162 million over the next five years.
DoD said Thursday 54 academic institutions will engage in the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program for fiscal year 2016 through the selected science and engineering projects.
In FY 2015, the MURI program awarded a total of $149 million to 22 research programs touching on 19 topics including impulsive biological force, quantum optics and dimensional organic polymers, ExecutiveGov reported June 2015.
Melissa Flagg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for research, said the MURI program has helped develop technology in support of military forces in the past 30 years, including laser frequency combs, nano-manufacturing and spintronics technology.
She added that DoD has also partnered with the National Science Foundation’s NSF Innovation Corps program to deliver training on entrepreneurship to selected MURI participants in support of efforts to engage with industry on the technologies developed through the initiative.
The U.S. Army‘s research office, the U.S. Air Force‘s office of scientific research and the Office of Naval Research received 270 white papers and 88 proposals on 21 topics for the FY 2016 competition.
Click here to view the list of MURI awardees for FY 2016.
