# Project 060 — Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship

**Program element:** 0601110D8Z — Basic Research Initiatives  
**Project:** 060  
**Component:** Defense-Wide  
**Appropriation:** 0400 — RDT&E, Defense-Wide  
**Budget Activity:** 1 — Basic Research  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0601110D8Z/060  
**Parent:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0601110D8Z

## Summary

Project 060 — Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship requests $44.5M in FY2027, 51% of the $87.1M requested for program element 0601110D8Z, down 8.3% on FY2026. 1 R-2A activity decomposes the request.

## Funding profile

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 46.7 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 48.5 |
| FY2027 | Request | 44.5 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 33.5 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 22.3 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 12.2 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 5.7 |

> Estimate types are not summed. This project is one leaf of PE 0601110D8Z; the PE total is the sum of its projects, never added to them.

## What project 060 buys

The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) program supports world-class researchers in scientific areas of critical importance to the DoW and ensures the cultivation of exceptional talent. Fellows’ research spans a broad set of emerging scientific areas with transformative potential, including quantum information science, novel engineered materials, cognitive neuroscience and human-machine interfaces, engineering biology, applied and computational mathematics, networks, machine learning and artificial intelligence, manufacturing science, and others. The prestigious research program delivers the most innovative and transformational scientific ideas of relevance to the DoW, from the top scientists in the Nation. The program fosters close connections between academia and the defense science and engineering (S&E) enterprise, a primary goal of Strategic Support for Basic Research (SSBR) efforts. Fellows provide the Department the deep scientific expertise from today’s leading research universities and collaborate with defense scientists and engineers. This program is being sunset; awarded projects will run their course with no new VBFF awards being made. The project includes support for the Laboratory-University Collaboration Initiative (LUCI) program, which is designed to team scientists in the DoW laboratories with top academic researchers from the programs sponsored or overseen by the Office of the Secretary of War (in particular, the VBFF and MURI fellows), in order to collaboratively perform research on a topic of their choice and explore early adoption of the scientific discoveries for military applications, platforms and systems, operations, and strategic roadmaps. Three-year grants allow a deep exchange of ideas between academic and DoW research communities, bring the most recent scientific breakthroughs closer to DoW relevance, and greatly expand the skills and knowledge of the S&E workforce within the laboratories. The project also supports the Bush Fellows Research Study Team (BRFST) program, designed to allow selected leaders in the academic research community to engage with the DoW at high levels, including briefings from MAJCOMs and site visits to military installations.

## Activities (R-2A) — 1

| Activity | FY2025 | FY2026 | FY2027 | Move | Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) Program | 36.7 | 48.5 | 44.5 | −8% | [a0](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0601110D8Z/060/a0) |

> Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only — no five-year plan. In the request year they partition this project exactly; in earlier years they can under-cover it.

### Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) Program

• Continue FY 2026 efforts at a reduced scale. • Explore additional ways for bringing transformative scientific research into the DoW research environment.

Full year-by-year narrative: https://hitchintel.com/programs/0601110D8Z/060/a0

## What is NOT on this page

Congressional marks, the R-2 mission description and acquisition strategy, the industry vs government split of the whole request, and related program elements are recorded at **program-element** grain — an NDAA mark lands on a PE, never on a project. They are at https://hitchintel.com/programs/0601110D8Z.

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Office of the Secretary of Defense RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibits R-2/R-2A/R-3, PE 0601110D8Z project 060 (PB PB2027).
- **MCP:** `mcp.hitchintel.com` — `budget_get_program_element(pe="0601110D8Z")`.

*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Budget figures are requests/estimates, not obligations.*