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DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, administered through the Idaho Operations Office, opened FOA DE-FOA-0003538 on 15 December 2025 with USD 57 million in total funding for the FY2026 Consolidated Innovative Nuclear Research (CINR) program — the department's standing vehicle for competitively-awarded nuclear R&D grants to universities, national laboratories, and industry. Awards run from a USD 3.1 million floor with no stated ceiling disclosed in the posting. A separate FY2026 Phase II Continuation CINR NOFO runs in parallel for university-led teams that performed well under the prior Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) cycle, allowing them to continue funded work without re-competing from scratch. The FOA sets a Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) letter-of- intent deadline of 5 January 2026, a pre-application deadline of 28 January 2026, and a full-application deadline of 9 June 2026. Program goals are framed around four pillars: sustaining the existing US reactor fleet, enabling advanced-reactor deployment, developing advanced fuel cycles, and preserving US leadership in nuclear technology relative to state-backed competitors (Russia's Rosatom, China's CNNC).
stack (DOE loan-programs-office SMR deals, TVA/Holtec grants, uranium enrichment restoration awards already in the register) — this NOFO is the R&D/university-and-national-lab layer underneath the production-scale financing rather than a standalone new initiative.
work under NSUF) feeds the same domestic-enrichment-capacity push that DOE's uranium-enrichment funding awards target, reinforcing the fuel-cycle leg of the critical-minerals/nuclear-fuel security agenda.
primarily seeds early-stage technology rather than shifting near-term supply; the signal is directional (sustained federal commitment to the nuclear R&D pipeline) rather than a production-capacity event.
full-application deadline closes, and how much of the USD 57 million flows to fuel-cycle/enrichment-adjacent work versus reactor-operations or advanced-reactor topics?
turnover among awardees, concentrating CINR funding among a recurring set of university teams?
fuel-cycle funding round, consistent with the pattern seen in the critical-minerals NOFO-to-production-financing progression elsewhere in the register?