January 9, 2008.  The FY 2008 appropriations for BES (H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, signed into law by the President on December 26, 2007) included no funding for this solicitation.  All of the proposals not already funded in FY 2007 are now declined due to lack of funds. Principal investigators will receive written notification of the declination and anonymous reviews of their proposals.

May 15, 2007.  The Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $11.2 million for basic research over three years aimed at overcoming the scientific challenges associated with the production, storage, and use of hydrogen.  DOE’s Office of Science selected 13 projects to be initiated in FY 2007 that will focus on fundamental science in support of hydrogen technologies.  (DOE Press Release; PDF file; List of Awards)

Background.  The DOE Hydrogen Program supports the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (HFI).  The President's 2007 Budget Request included an increase of $17.5 million for the FY 2007 HFI funding in the Basic Energy Science (BES) program to augment existing BES fundamental research on hydrogen (see below) by supporting additional proposals in priority research need areas such as novel materials for hydrogen storage, functional membranes, and nanoscale catalysts.  FY 2007 awards are based on HFI solicitations, CLOSED (Press Release), and the distribution of awards were determined by peer review according to well-established guidelines. 

The joint Congressional resolution (H.J.R. 20) funding for BES in FY2007 provided approximately $4 million (of the $17.5 million requested) for Notice 06-17, Basic Research for the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.  The proposed FY2008 budget contained full funding for the original HFI initiative ($17.5M) plus additional funding for HFI ($9.5M), for a total of $27.0M.  All full applications submitted in response to Notice 06-17 that were not funded in FY2007 were held in consideration for funding in FY2008.  However, the FY 2008 appropriations for BES (H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, signed into law by the President on December 26, 2007) included no funding for this solicitation.  All of the proposals not already funded in FY 2007 are now declined due to lack of funds.  Principal investigators will receive written notification of the declination and anonymous reviews of their proposals.

BES received 502 pre-applications and pre-proposals in response to FY 2007 Office of Science Notice 06-17 and DOE Laboratory Program Announcement 06-17.  The deadline for all mandatory pre-proposals was July 6, 2006.  Each of these submissions was independently reviewed by at least four DOE program managers. Two criteria were used in this review process: i) whether the proposed activities represented Basic Research, and ii) whether the proposed research was responsive to the specific research goals described in the Notice.  Based on the recommendations of DOE program mangers, principal investigators of 249 submissions have been encouraged to submit full proposals.  A breakdown by research category is given in the table below.  There is no appeal process for discouraged pre-applications, nor is there any additional guidance/information that we can provide regarding discouragements.  According to the rules set forth in the Notices, discouraged pre-applications or pre-proposals cannot be used to submit full proposals.  Email messages informing the principal investigator of the encouragement or discouragement of a full proposal were sent prior to September 12, 2006.

	Received	Encouraged
Novel materials for hydrogen storage	164	86
Functional membranes	146	75
Nanoscale catalysts	192	88
Totals	502	249

BES received 229 full proposals by the deadline of December 12, 2006.  The formal proposals were peer reviewed according to well-established guidelines.  Thirteen of these proposals were funded in FY2007 (see above).

Basic Research Needs for the Hydrogen Economy
This report is based upon the BES Workshop on Hydrogen Production, Storage, and Use, held May 13–15, 2003, to identify fundamental research needs and opportunities in hydrogen production, storage, and use, with a focus on new, emerging and scientifically challenging areas that have the potential to have significant impact in science and technologies.  (more)
PDF file of this report  (7.5 MB, 2nd printing, February 2004)

The President's 2005 Budget Request included fundamental research within the BES program within the HFI to help overcome key hurdles in hydrogen production, storage, and conversion.  FY 2005 appropriations from Congress supported the BES Budget Request, and research awards were announced by Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman on May 25, 2005.  Press Release.  List of Awards.

The distribution of the 70 awards ($21.5 million in FY 2005) were in five technical focus areas:

                    A:  Novel Materials for Hydrogen Storage  (17 awards)
                    B:  Membranes for Separation, Purification, and Ion Transport  (16 awards)
                    C:  Design of Catalysts at the Nanoscale  (18 awards)
                    D:  Solar Hydrogen Production  (13 awards)
                    E:  Bio-Inspired Materials and Processes  (6 awards)
 
Background: Mandatory preproposals were due by July 15, 2004, as required by the requests for proposals (provided below).  Researchers submitted 668 preproposals, which were reviewed by DOE for conformance to the guidelines contained in the solicitations.  Following the review, principal investigators of 261 preproposals received notification from DOE in August 2004 encouraging the submission of a full proposal associated with their preproposal by January 4, 2005.   The 227 full proposals that were received underwent external peer review according to well-established guidelines.  Seventy of the proposals were selected to receive funding starting in FY 2005.
 

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