Funding Opportunities

Update: This Teaming List is associated with the ROCKS program, published on August 25, 2025 (DE-FOA-0003592 and DE-FOA-0003593).

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is considering issuing a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to accelerate U.S. mineral independence by increasing domestic supplies of rare earth elements (REEs) and other critical minerals. The purpose of this Teaming Partner List announcement is to facilitate the formation of new project teams to respond to the potential NOFO. Any NOFO issued in the future would provide specific program goals, technical metrics, and selection criteria. If there are any inconsistencies between this announcement and the potential NOFO, the NOFO language would be controlling.

This program would seek innovative and transformational technologies that will enable rapid assessment of ore resources within a 5 kilometer x 5 kilometer area. All resource types, such as hard rock, REE-enriched clays, and seafloor deposits, are of interest. Technologies of interest include, but are not limited to, drilling and coring technology; improved sensors (both geochemical and geophysical); and rapid, quantitative analysis tools. High-risk, high-reward ideas are encouraged.

Expertise in the following areas may be useful in responding to the potential NOFO:

• Mining
• Drilling
• Geoscience
• Sensors
• Signal processing
• Ocean engineering

ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting in August 2025. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically until the close of the Full Application period to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following form: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting your information to this Teaming Partner List, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to email addresses or by other means will not be considered. Participation in and utilization of this list is completely voluntary. ARPA-E will not identify or facilitate connections through the Teaming Partner List and participation in the list has no bearing whatsoever on the evaluation of applications submitted to the potential funding opportunity.

This list does not constitute a NOFO. A NOFO does not exist at this time. Applicants must refer to the NOFO, expected to be issued by August 2025, for instructions on applying and for details on how projects will be funded.

Encourage/Discourage notification letters were released and the Full Application NOFO was posted October 30, 2025.

Rare earth elements (REEs) and critical minerals are essential for modern energy technologies. REEs are key to high-performance magnets and motors, superconductors, and catalysts—critical components to energy production, transmission, and conversion systems necessary for U.S. energy security. Affordable and secure domestic critical mineral supply chains will advance future energy competitiveness. The U.S. possesses significant domestic resources of REEs and other critical minerals but operates only one productive REE mine.

The ROCKS program seeks fundamentally disruptive technologies to transform the ore deposit characterization process. The program will pursue technology that targets order-of-magnitude improvements in characterization with a primary focus on drilling, sensing, and analysis. These advances will shorten the timeline for feasibility assessments of REE and critical mineral deposits, leading to increased access to these resources. In addition, advances in sensing can aid assessment of currently untapped resources, such as seafloor mineral deposits.

By facilitating mine development and increased access to domestic mineral resources, the program furthers ARPA-E’s statutory goals to improve the energy security of the U.S., ensure resilient and reliable supply chains for energy-relevant materials, and maintain U.S. technological leadership in critical mineral resource development.

The ROCKS program seeks technologies that improve the characterization of critical mineral resources, with an emphasis on REEs. Technologies of interest are grouped into three main categories: (1) drilling technology to increase penetration rates and core recovery; (2) sensing and analysis technologies to provide higher-resolution mineralogical and geochemical information, in situ or at a distance; and (3) other unique concepts that disrupt the current state of resource characterization for hard rock settings as well as REE-enriched clays, placer deposits, and seafloor resources.