DOE Early Career Research Program 2026 (DE-FOA-0003602): Closed Cycle

DOE Early Career Research Program 2026 (DE-FOA-0003602): Closed Cycle

Historical status

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science FY2026 Early Career Research Program cycle is closed. The official funding-opportunity record gives June 2, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time as the application deadline, and DOE lists DE-FOA-0003602 among its closed funding opportunity announcements. The official Early Career Research Program page and the current Office of Science funding pages do not announce a later ECRP cycle. This page is therefore a historical reference to the 2026 call, not an open application listing. Do not treat the dates below as a current invitation to submit.

The 2026 call was a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), not a general fellowship or an individual stipend. It supported independent basic research by early-career investigators working through eligible U.S. academic institutions, DOE/NNSA National Laboratories, or institutions operating Office of Science scientific user facilities. The announcement covered seven Office of Science program offices: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Biological and Environmental Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, and Isotope R&D and Production.

2026 call at a glance

The amounts were planning figures rather than guaranteed checks. DOE said the total funding depended on appropriations and that it could fund all, part, or none of the submitted applications. The standard award period was five years. For an institution of higher education, the expected amount was approximately $875,000 over that period. The expected amount for a DOE/NNSA National Laboratory or an SC scientific user facility was approximately $2,750,000 over five years. The NOFO treated those figures as the normal scale and asked applicants to justify material deviations.

Who was eligible for the 2026 competition

Eligibility had two layers: the applicant organization and the individual PI. At the organization level, the NOFO restricted awards to U.S. Institutions of Higher Education, DOE/NNSA National Laboratories, and institutions operating SC Scientific User Facilities. The organization submitting the pre-application or full application had to fit one of those categories. A commercial company, an independent researcher applying personally, or an ordinary nonprofit outside the listed categories was not an eligible lead applicant under this call.

At a U.S. academic institution, the PI had to be an untenured Assistant Professor or an untenured Associate Professor on the tenure track at the institution from which the application originated. The PI had to hold that eligible position as of the application closing date. The official DOE program page summarizes the academic route as an untenured, tenure-track assistant or associate professor at a U.S. academic institution.

At a DOE/NNSA National Laboratory, the PI had to be a full-time, permanent, non-postdoctoral national-laboratory employee as of the application deadline. At an SC Scientific User Facility that was not a DOE/NNSA National Laboratory, the corresponding requirement was a full-time, permanent, non-postdoctoral user-facility employee. The NOFO also encouraged laboratory and facility investigators to charge at least 50% of their time to the award, with amounts below that level expected to be as close to 50% as possible.

The doctorate rule was specific to this competition. No more than ten years could have passed between the year the PI received the relevant Ph.D. and the calendar year at the start of the federal fiscal year in which the NOFO was released. For this call, individuals who received a relevant doctorate on or after January 1, 2015, were eligible. If a PI held multiple doctorates, the discipline of the doctorate within the eligibility window had to be relevant to the proposed research. Major-life-event extensions were possible only with the validation described in the NOFO and supporting documentation in the pre-application.

DOE did not require a PI or other award personnel to be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Everyone working or proposed to work under an award did, however, need the legal right to perform that work in the jurisdiction where it would occur. That distinction matters: citizenship was not a blanket eligibility test, while employment and work authorization still had to be resolved by the applicant institution.

The NOFO also excluded PIs who had previously received an award under the SC ECRP. Early-career awards from other agencies or organizations did not automatically disqualify a PI, but the proposed research had to have a different scope from the work already funded. A PI could submit only one pre-application in the competition and could not submit an application in more than three SC ECRP competitions.

Independent PI leadership was mandatory

The program was designed to support the PI’s independent research career. Awards had to be under the sole and indivisible leadership of that PI. Other senior or key personnel could participate, but their work had to be clearly and unambiguously under the PI’s direction and supervision, with less time and less requested support than the PI. The NOFO stated that there could be no co-PIs and warned that applications including co-PIs could be declined without review.

That rule did not prohibit ordinary collaboration. A collaborator, subaward participant, facility partner, or senior researcher could contribute to the work if the application made the authority structure clear. The problem was a person designated as sharing or receiving a significant part of the PI’s authority and responsibility for the project as a whole. Teams preparing a future ECRP application should distinguish technical collaboration from shared project leadership and should check the current NOFO rather than assuming the 2026 wording will remain unchanged.

How the 2026 submission sequence worked

The call used a required preliminary stage followed by a full application. There was no letter of intent requirement in the 2026 NOFO.

1. Prepare the pre-application. The pre-application began with a title page containing the project title, PI and institution details, year of doctorate, prior SC ECRP application count, program-scope information, and any eligibility-extension request. It then included a clear description of the objectives and technical approach. The narrative could not exceed three pages, excluding the title page, and the document had to be machine-readable rather than a scanned image. A senior/key-personnel listing and a list of individuals who should not review a later application were also required attachments.

2. Submit through PAMS. The pre-application had to be submitted electronically through the DOE SC PAMS website by a user at the PI’s institution with the “Submit to DOE” privilege. A PI could draft the document, but institutional countersignature was required for submission. The NOFO specifically said not to send the pre-application through Grants.gov or FedConnect. The deadline for that stage was 2026-03-24 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

3. Wait for the DOE response. DOE reviewed pre-applications for responsiveness to the listed research topics and could also consider scientific and technical merit, appropriateness of the approach, likelihood of scientific impact, relevance to Office of Science priorities, and balance across programs. DOE sent an encourage or discourage response through PAMS. Only applicants whose pre-application was encouraged could proceed to a full application; an application that had not been encouraged could be declined without merit review. The stated response date was 2026-04-21 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

4. Register the organization and prepare Grants.gov access. The full application route required an active System for Award Management (SAM) registration with a Unique Entity Identifier, a Grants.gov account and organizational profile, and an Authorized Organization Representative whose role had been approved by the organization’s EBiz Point of Contact. DOE advised organizations to complete these registrations early because SAM registration could take several weeks.

5. Submit the full application through Grants.gov. The full application had to be submitted through Grants.gov, using Workspace webforms or the permitted downloaded forms. The application had to be received by 2026-06-02 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The Grants.gov receipt and tracking number were the evidence of timely electronic submission. PAMS remained relevant for pre-applications and for viewing the DOE SC proposal after Grants.gov transmission, but it was not the full-application submission channel.

Application materials and restrictions

The 2026 application package had to follow the NOFO and Grants.gov form instructions. Teams needed a project narrative, the required forms and attachments, a budget and justification, and the supporting material specified for the selected Office of Science program area. The application had to explain how the proposed basic research fit the appropriate DOE Office of Science priorities. Research connected to current commercial activity or current customer needs could be declined without merit review because the call sought fundamental research rather than a commercial development proposal.

Letters were restricted. Letters of recommendation and department-chair letters were not allowed and could cause the application to be eliminated during initial review. Letters from collaborators or from institutions providing access to data, models, software, equipment, or facilities were permitted only to describe the collaboration or access arrangement. They were not supposed to function as endorsements. Applicants also had to follow the NOFO’s file-format and attachment rules, including machine-readable documents and unique attachment names.

Cost sharing was not required and was not a merit-review factor. That did not remove the need for a credible budget. The award figures included direct and indirect costs, and DOE expected applicants to explain any request that differed materially from the standard amount. Continuation funding for later budget periods depended on appropriations, progress toward the approved objectives, required reports, and compliance with award terms.

What readers should do now

There is no current 2026 application action to take: the pre-application and full-application deadlines have passed, and DOE classifies DE-FOA-0003602 as closed. Readers who need a historical record should use the official listing and NOFO PDF linked below to confirm the 2026 rules. Readers planning a future submission should monitor the DOE Office of Science funding pages for a new announcement and should not reuse the dates, eligibility language, award amounts, or submission instructions in this archive entry without checking the new notice.

The most useful preparation lessons from the closed call are administrative. Confirm that the institution is an eligible applicant, verify the PI’s position and doctorate year, determine whether any prior SC ECRP participation affects eligibility, establish a sole-PI leadership structure, and register the organization in PAMS, SAM, and Grants.gov before a future deadline. Also confirm the selected research topic with the relevant Office of Science program office. Those checks should happen before writing a full proposal because the 2026 process used the pre-application response as a gate to the full application.

Official sources

• DOE Office of Science funding-opportunity record for DE-FOA-0003602
• DOE Office of Science DE-FOA-0003602 NOFO PDF
• DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program page
• DOE Office of Science closed FOAs

The NOFO is the controlling document for the 2026 eligibility rules, funding details, application contents, and submission process. The listing page supplies the official announcement status and dates, while the Early Career Research Program page provides the program summary and award-level overview. Because this entry is marked as a historical reference, any future ECRP cycle must be documented from its own official DOE announcement.