Funding opportunity announcement: Intermountain Critical Minerals Research Launchpad

Updated April 2026

Leadership contacts

• Mridul Gautam, mgautam@unr.edu
• Josh Baker, jebaker@unr.edu
• avpr@unr.edu

Administrative contacts

• Carrie Bushá, cbusha@unr.edu
• researchdevelopment@unr.edu

Award information

Funding available

A total of $100,000 is available under this announcement. Multiple awards are anticipated.

Period of performance

Awards will be made for a maximum of a twelve-month period of performance. Earliest project state date is July 1, 2026 and latest project end date is June 30, 2027.

Allowable and unallowable costs

The following cost categories are not allowable and will be removed from any proposed budget:

• Faculty or staff salary support of any kind
• Indirect costs (facilities and administrative costs)
• Publication, open-access or page charges
• Hosting, reception or event costs

Eligibility information

Each proposal must designate one Principal Investigator (PI) and two co-PIs. The PI and two co-PIs must come from each of the three sponsoring institutions. All three investigators must hold faculty or research scientist appointments at their respective institutions at the time of submission. One PI will serve as the lead PI responsible for overall coordination, reporting and communication with the program.

The proposal will be submitted to the lead PI’s institution.

Additional co-investigators from any of the three institutions may be included and are encouraged where their participation strengthens the scientific or technical scope of the proposal. Co-investigators must hold appointments at one of the three sponsoring institutions.

Submission details

Applications must be submitted through InfoReady Review.

Applications must be received by 5 p.m. by the due date in the deadlines section.

Submission questions should be emailed to researchdevelopment@unr.edu.

Program description

The University of Nevada, Reno, the University of Idaho and the University of Wyoming share a strategic interest in developing regionally grounded, federally competitive research programs in critical minerals and rare earth elements (REE). The three institutions collectively possess significant and complementary expertise across geoscience, materials characterization, separation chemistry, process engineering, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), sustainability assessment, and biological recovery systems.

The Intermountain Critical Minerals Research Launchpad (ICMRL) was established to translate the collaborative momentum generated at the March 2026 AI/ML in Critical Materials workshop into funded, externally competitive research. This program provides seed funding to interdisciplinary teams whose work spans all three institutions and whose research directly addresses the role of AI/ML in advancing technologies across the critical minerals supply chain.

The primary objective of the ICMRL is to provide seed funding that enables multi-institutional research teams to generate the preliminary data, proof-of-concept results and collaborative infrastructure necessary to prepare a competitive proposal for external funding from a federal agency or other major sponsor. Awards under this program are explicitly oriented toward proposal production as a near-term outcome.

Proposals must address AI/ML applications relevant to one or more stages of the critical minerals and rare earth element supply chain, including but not limited to:

• Geochemical prospecting and domestic resource assessment
• Materials characterization and classification
• Separation chemistry, ligand and sorbent discovery, and process engineering
• Membrane design and industrial scale-up
• Sustainability assessment, lifecycle analysis, and techno-economic modeling
• Biological and biomolecular recovery systems
• Secondary sources, recycling, and circular supply chain design

Proposals must make a compelling case for how the collaboration between the three institutions creates a team distinctively capable of addressing the proposed research challenge.

Proposal preparation and submission instructions

All application components must be submitted as a single compiled PDF. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Project narrative

The project narrative is limited to five (5) pages, excluding references, biosketches, budget and budget justification. Pages must be formatted with one-inch margins and a minimum 11-point font. The narrative must address the following:

1. Significance and innovation
   1. Describe the scientific or technical problem being addressed and its relevance to the national critical minerals challenge.
   2. Explain how AI/ML approaches are central to the proposed research.
2. Approach
   1. Provide a clear and specific description of the research plan, including methods, data sources, and analytical frameworks.
   2. Identify key milestones and deliverables within the twelve-month performance period.
3. Team and collaboration
   1. Describe the nature and depth of the collaboration among the three institutions. Proposals must clearly articulate how each institution contributes distinctively to the project and why the multi-institutional structure is essential to the research.
4. Path to external funding
   1. Identify the specific federal agency or agencies and program(s) to which the team intends to submit a proposal following the seed period. Proposals must name specific funding opportunities (e.g., NSF, DOE, DoD program names and solicitation numbers where known).
   2. Describe how the proposed seed activities will generate the preliminary data or research foundation necessary to be competitive for the identified external opportunity.

References

References cited in the project narrative must be provided and do not count against the five-page narrative limit. No specific format is required, but citations must be complete and consistent.

Biographical sketches

A biographical sketch must be provided for each senior investigator (PI and any co-investigators who are faculty). Biosketches should follow the NSF or equivalent.

Budget

A detailed budget must be provided for the full project, broken out by institution. The budget must clearly indicate how funds are distributed across UNR, the University of Idaho, and the University of Wyoming. Budgets should reflect allowable costs only, as described in Section 2.3.

Budget justification

A written justification must accompany the budget and explain the basis for each line item. The justification should clearly connect each cost to specific activities in the project narrative.

Review and selection process

Proposals will undergo a two-stage review process:

Technical Review. A multi-institutional technical review committee, composed of faculty and research professionals with relevant expertise from the three sponsoring institutions, will evaluate proposals on scientific and technical merit, the quality of the proposed collaboration, and the clarity of the path to external funding.

Institutional Review. Following technical review, the Vice Presidents for Research and Innovation (or equivalent), or their designees, at each institution will assess finalists for institutional fit, strategic alignment, and institutional capacity to support the proposed work.

Review criteria

Proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria:

• Scientific and technical merit: Quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed research approach.
• Role of AI/ML: Extent to which AI/ML methods are integral (rather than peripheral) to the proposed work.
• Collaboration: Depth, specificity, and necessity of the multi-institutional partnership; clarity about each institution's distinct contribution.
• Path to external funding: Specificity and credibility of the identified target programs and the team's plan for leveraging seed results into a competitive external proposal.
• Qualifications of the team: Demonstrated expertise of the PI team relevant to the proposed scope.

Post-award requirements and deliverables

Proposal development support

Award recipients are required to engage their institution's sponsored research or proposal development office throughout the award period. This includes coordinating with proposal development staff at all three institutions during the preparation of the external funding proposal that is a required outcome of the award (see Section 6.4).

Progress reporting

Awardees must submit quarterly progress reports to the ICMRL program contact at each institution. Each quarterly report must include:

• A narrative summary of research progress made during the reporting period
• A description of any challenges encountered and how they are being addressed
• A description of any changes to the research plan, and justification for those changes
• A budget update showing expenditures to date and projected spending through the end of the performance period

Budget reporting

A budget update must be submitted with each quarterly progress report. Significant deviations from the approved budget require prior approval from the ICMRL program contacts.

External proposal requirement

Awardees are required to submit a proposal to an external sponsor within six (6) months of the end of the award period, that is, no later than December 31, 2027. The external proposal must be directly related to the research conducted under the seed award and must target one of the federal programs identified in the project narrative.

Teams that are unable to meet this deadline must provide written justification to the ICMRL program contacts at all three institutions documenting the circumstances that precluded timely submission. Exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis and must be substantially justified.