Program:  The MURI program supports basic research in science and engineering at U.S. institutions of higher education that is of potential interest to the Department of Defense (DoD). The program is focused on multidisciplinary research efforts where more than one traditional discipline interacts to provide rapid advances in scientific areas of interest to the DoD. As defined by the DoD, “basic research is systematic study directed toward greater knowledge or understanding of the fundamental aspects of phenomena and of observable facts without specific applications towards processes or products in mind. It includes all scientific study and experimentation directed toward increasing fundamental knowledge and understanding in those fields of the physical, engineering, environmental, and life sciences related to long-term national security needs.  The 2014 MURI competition supports the following topics:

• Attosecond Electron Dynamics
• Force-Activated Synthetic Biology
• Nonlinear Dynamics of Energy Hypersurfaces Governing Reaction Networks
• Strongly Linked Multiscale Models for Predicting Novel Functional Materials
• Multistep Catalysis
• Innovation in Prokaryotic Evolution
• Ultracold Molecular Ion Reactions
• The Skin-Microbe Interactome
• Time-resolved quantum dynamics of complex systems
• Computational Foundation of Mathematics and Information
• Transport and Utilization of Energy Using Plasmon-induced Processes
• Design Rules for Biobased and Bioinspired Materials
• Control of Coherent Structures in Plasmas for Reconfigurable Metamaterial-Based Devices
• Multifunctional Quantum Transduction of Photons, Electrons and Phonons
• Control of Light Propagation through Metasurfaces
• Goal-Driven, Multi-Source Algorithms for Complex Resilient Multi-Physics Systems
• Security Theory of Nano-Scale Devices
• Understanding Energy Harvesting Mechanisms in Polymer-Based Photovoltaics
• Role of Bidirectional Computation in Visual Scene Analysis
• Exploring the Atomic and Electronic Structure of Materials to Predict Functional Material Properties
• Optical Computing
• Quantum optomechanics
• Air-Sea Interaction and RF Propagation in Maritime Atmospheric Boundary Layers
• Hydrodynamics of Non-traditional Propulsion

Deadline: December 16, 2013.

For more information, go to: http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=240153