The Department of Energys (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administrations (NNSA) Office of Defense Programs, directs research and development activities to maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile. This nuclear deterrent remains a vital part of our national security infrastructure. It maintains strategic stability, deters potential adversaries, and reassures our allies and partners of our security commitments. Since 1992, the United States has observed the moratorium on underground nuclear testing while significantly decreasing the size of its nuclear arsenal. National Policy required NNSA and its weapons laboratories to institute the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) to ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the stockpile, while allowing the country to pursue a variety of nonproliferation and disarmament goals. The SSP combines sophisticated experiments, highly accurate physics modeling, and improved computational power to simulate and predict nuclear weapon performance over a wide range of conditions and scenarios. The Stewardship Science Academic Alliances (SSAA) Program was established in 2002 to support state-of-the-art research at U.S. academic institutions in areas of fundamental physical science and technology of relevance to the SSP mission. The SSAA Program provides the research experience necessary to maintain a cadre of trained scientists and engineers at U.S. universities to meet the nations current and future SSP needs, with a focus on those areas not supported by other federal agencies. It supports the DOE/NNSAs priorities both to address the workforce specific needs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and to support the next generation of professionals who will meet those needs. The Office of Defense Programs announce their interest in receiving applications for new or renewal financial assistance awards for research grants in the SSAA Program. Researchers seeking renewals of their current SSAA grant should apply to this NOFO. The research areas of interest in the SSAA Program for this announcement are properties of materials under extreme conditions and material processing, low energy nuclear science, and radiochemistry. Questions regarding the content of the announcement must be submitted through the FedConnect portal. You must register with FedConnect FedConnect - Gateway to Government Opportunities (test instance) to respond as an interested party to submit questions, and to view responses to questions. It is recommended that you register as soon after release of the NOFO as possible to have the benefit of all responses. DOE/NNSA will try to respond to a question within 3 business days unless a similar question and answer have already been posted on the website. All applications must be submitted through Grant.gov. Questions and comments concerning this NOFO shall be submitted not later than 5 calendar days prior to the application due date. Questions submitted after that date may not allow the Government sufficient time to respond. Questions relating to the registration process, system requirements, how an application form works, or the submittal process must be directed to Grants.gov at 1-800-518-4726 or support@grants.gov. DOE/NNSA cannot answer these questions. Name: Kristee Hall, Grants Management Specialist Via: https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/default.htm SSAA Program Contact: Terri Stone via: terri.stone@nnsa.doe.gov