The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science is the United States’ largest federal funder of basic research in the physical sciences, supporting work in fields such as high-energy physics, nuclear physics, fusion energy sciences, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, and advanced scientific computing. For a researcher whose grant-writing experience is built around NIH or NSF, a DOE Office of Science project narrative requires several real adjustments: the funding opportunity itself may run through one of two structurally different tracks, national-laboratory collaboration is often a first-class part of the science plan rather than an optional add-on, and access to DOE’s scientific user facilities frequently sits alongside — and interacts with — the funded research plan itself. This guide covers what is distinctive about writing a DOE Office of Science narrative. For the mechanics that carry over directly from other federal agencies — specific aims framing, budget narrative structure — see CASRAI’s guides on the NIH Specific Aims page, how to apply for an NSF grant, and the general grant narrative / project narrative guide, and for a side-by-side of requirements, see CASRAI’s comparisons of NSF vs. DOE grant requirements and NIH vs. DOE grant requirements.
Two submission tracks: FOAs and Laboratory Announcements
DOE Office of Science funding opportunities are published through the Office of Science’s own site, science.osti.gov/Funding-Opportunities, and applicants need to identify which of two distinct tracks a given opportunity belongs to before drafting anything, because the submission system and eligible-applicant pool differ:
- Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs), numbered DE-FOA-####, are open to universities, non-profits, industry, and other non-federal entities. These are posted to Grants.gov and use the standard SF-424 (R&R) federal application forms, alongside a DOE-specific project narrative and budget justification.
- Laboratory Announcements, numbered LAB-##-####, are open only to the DOE national laboratories (proposals from a lab’s own scientific staff, sometimes with university or industry sub-awardees or collaborators named within the lab’s proposal). These are not submitted through Grants.gov and do not use SF-424 forms — they go through DOE’s Portfolio Analysis and Management System (PAMS) directly to the sponsoring DOE program office.
A university-based principal investigator who wants to partner with a national laboratory on Office of Science funding is therefore usually applying under the FOA track and naming the lab collaboration inside that proposal (for example, as a subaward, an unfunded collaboration described in the narrative, or a request for user-facility access — see below) rather than trying to apply through the lab-only announcement itself. Always confirm the announcement type on the specific opportunity page before assuming which forms, portal, and eligibility rules apply (DOE Office of Science Funding Opportunities).
Structuring the project narrative
DOE Office of Science FOAs specify their own narrative page limits and required sections in the individual solicitation, and applicants should always work from the current FOA text rather than a general template. Within that, the suggested organization DOE describes across its solicitations follows a consistent shape:
- Background and introduction — the scientific context and relevant prior literature, establishing why the proposed work matters.
- Project objectives — a clear, concise statement of the specific goals of the proposed work.
- Research plan / methods — the largest portion of the narrative: a description and justification of the proposed project and the methods to be used, written with enough specificity that a reviewer can evaluate technical feasibility.
- Timeline and personnel responsibilities — DOE narratives are expected to state, without ambiguity, which project personnel are responsible for which activities and when those activities will occur, not just a general project timeline.
- Bibliography — a list of references cited in the narrative (this is typically an appendix that does not count against the narrative page limit, but confirm this against the specific FOA).
Most current FOAs also require a Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER) Plan as an appendix to the research narrative on new and renewal proposals — a statement of how the proposed project will encourage diverse and inclusive participation. This is a DOE-specific requirement with no direct equivalent in an NIH specific aims page or NSF project summary, and reviewers score it as part of the submission package, so it should not be drafted as an afterthought. Format matters too: DOE narrative PDFs are expected to be plain, non-editable files (no fillable fields, embedded signatures, passwords, or redactions), since Office of Science staff and reviewers read submissions in Adobe Acrobat (representative DE-FOA solicitation, science.osti.gov).
National laboratory partnerships in the narrative
DOE operates 17 national laboratories, and Office of Science research is deeply entangled with them — the Office of Science is the steward of 10 of the 17. A DOE Office of Science narrative from a university PI often needs to describe a working relationship with laboratory staff or facilities explicitly, in a way an NIH R01 or an NSF standard grant narrative rarely requires. Depending on the opportunity, that relationship can take several forms: a formal subaward to a national laboratory named as a collaborating institution in the proposal, an unfunded collaboration where a lab scientist contributes expertise or access without a separate budget line, or a request for time on a lab-hosted scientific user facility (see next section). Whichever form applies, DOE reviewers expect the narrative to make the division of labor and the value of the lab relationship explicit — a vague reference to “collaboration with [Lab]” without specifics on what the lab contributes and who is responsible for which parts of the work reads as unsubstantiated under DOE’s competency-of-personnel merit criterion (see below).
Requesting access to DOE scientific user facilities
A feature of the DOE Office of Science portfolio with no close NIH or NSF analog is the scale of its scientific user facilities program: accelerators, colliders, supercomputers, light sources, and neutron sources operated by the national laboratories and made available to the broader research community. DOE reports that more than 38,000 researchers from universities, other national laboratories, industry, and international partners use Office of Science user facilities annually (DOE Office of Science User Facilities). Access to a user facility is typically requested through a separate, facility-specific proposal process (often a shorter, peer-reviewed “beamtime” or allocation request submitted directly to the facility, distinct from a full FOA research-grant narrative), rather than being bundled automatically into a program-office research grant. When a research plan depends on facility access — for example, characterization work planned at a DOE light source or neutron source, or a large computing allocation — the project narrative should state clearly whether facility time has already been secured, is being requested in parallel, or is assumed as a future step, since reviewers will weigh feasibility against how firm that access actually is.
Merit review criteria
DOE Office of Science proposals go through an initial administrative/eligibility review before scientific merit review begins — confirming the applicant is eligible, all mandatory requirements and required documents were submitted, the proposed project is responsive to the announcement’s stated objectives, and the work is not duplicative of DOE’s existing programmatic portfolio. Proposals that clear that stage are sent, generally to at least three qualified external reviewers, for evaluation against DOE’s stated merit review criteria, listed in descending order of importance (DOE Office of Science Merit Review System):
- Scientific and/or technical merit of the project.
- Appropriateness of the proposed method or approach.
- Competency of the applicant’s personnel and adequacy of proposed resources — including, where relevant, the strength and clarity of any named national-laboratory or user-facility relationship.
- Reasonableness and appropriateness of the proposed budget.
The exact weighting and any additional program-specific criteria (such as PIER Plan quality) are set out in the individual FOA, so treat this ordering as the general DOE framework to write toward, not a substitute for reading the specific solicitation’s review-criteria section.
How this differs from NIH and NSF, in practice
For a PI moving between agencies, the practical differences that most affect how a narrative gets drafted are: DOE’s two-track submission structure (FOA vs. Laboratory Announcement) has no equivalent in NIH’s or NSF’s single primary submission path; DOE narratives put an explicit premium on stating who does what and when, rather than leaving timeline and responsibility distributed across the narrative prose; national-laboratory and user-facility relationships are frequently central to feasibility rather than incidental; and DOE’s PIER Plan appendix is a distinct, separately evaluated requirement rather than a broader-impacts section woven into the narrative body, as in NSF’s Broader Impacts criterion. CASRAI’s NSF vs. DOE and NIH vs. DOE comparisons lay these differences out side by side in more detail. Budget-side mechanics — indirect cost treatment, direct vs. indirect cost rules under 2 CFR 200 — are covered in CASRAI’s indirect costs guide and the direct vs. indirect cost comparison; the funding-instrument question (grant vs. cooperative agreement, which DOE also uses where it wants active substantive involvement in the work) is covered in CASRAI’s grant vs. contract vs. cooperative agreement comparison and the cooperative agreement dictionary term.
Frequently asked questions
Is a DOE Office of Science proposal submitted through Grants.gov like NIH or NSF?
Only for the FOA track, which is open to universities, non-profits, and industry and uses Grants.gov with SF-424 (R&R) forms, the same general federal application forms NIH and NSF also use. Laboratory Announcements, open only to DOE’s national laboratories, are submitted instead through DOE’s own Portfolio Analysis and Management System (PAMS) and do not use Grants.gov or SF-424 forms.
Do I need a national laboratory as a partner to get DOE Office of Science funding?
No — many FOAs fund investigator-initiated university research without a required lab partner. But a lab relationship, whether a subaward, an unfunded collaboration, or a user-facility access request, is common enough in Office of Science research that reviewers evaluate it explicitly when a narrative describes one, under the competency-of-personnel merit criterion.
What is a PIER Plan and is it required?
A Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER) Plan is a DOE-specific appendix, required on most current new and renewal Office of Science proposals, describing how the proposed project will encourage diverse and inclusive participation. Requirements are set per FOA, so confirm against the specific solicitation rather than assuming it applies to every opportunity.
How do I request time on a DOE user facility separately from a research grant?
Most DOE scientific user facilities run their own peer-reviewed access process (often called a beamtime, allocation, or general-user proposal) separate from an Office of Science research-grant FOA. Check the specific facility’s user program page, linked from science.osti.gov/User-Facilities, for its own proposal call and deadlines.
