The Small Grants for Exploratory Research Program includes an expedited review process designed to provide a rapid decision to the Principal Investigator. The circumstances under which it can be used are narrow. Program is designed to foster collaborations between academic groups of professors, students, and representatives from industry. The Major Research Equipment Awards allow institutions to purchase equipment that is more expensive than that typically available on an Individual Investigator Award.
Program supports multi-disciplinary training groups.
These might include graduate students, undergraduate students, and post-doctoral students as well. The Combined Research and Curriculum Development Program emphasizes the need to incorporate exciting research advances in important technology areas into the upper level undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula.