Funding: Department of Energy Announces $10 Million to Develop Particle Accelerators for Medicine and Industry

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide $10 million for efforts to advance particle accelerator technology for medical, security, energy, and industrial applications. The award are aimed specifically at helping to transform sophisticated accelerator technology used primarily for scientific research into an effective tool of medicine and industry.

"Particle accelerators have become increasingly prevalent and important throughout the U.S. economy," said James Siegrist, DOE Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. "DOE has been the major force in the United States for advancing this technology, and this program will help to spread the benefits of this technology to the medical and industrial sectors."

Funded under the Accelerator Stewardship program within the DOE Office of Science, research to date has helped reduce the cost and improve the quality of cancer therapy, advance non-chemical methods of destroying pathogens and toxic chemicals, and enhance security operations at border checkpoints.

Research is closely coordinated with multiple program offices within DOE and with other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation, all of which have their own interest in various applications of accelerator technology.

Applications will be open to universities, DOE national laboratories, nonprofits, and private firms. Funding is to be awarded competitively, on the basis of peer review, and is expected to be in the form of one- to three-year awards ranging from $75,000 to $1,000,000 per year, beginning in the current fiscal year. Total planned funding is $10 million over three years, with outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations.

A DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for universities, nonprofits, and private firms, and a parallel, companion announcement for DOE national laboratories, along with a Frequently Asked Questions document, may be found here.