What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 120 of PE 0601120D8Z. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
• Continue FY 2026 efforts. • Award up to 450-500 new scholarships to meet DoW sponsoring facility demand. • Projected to have ~816 SMART scholars intern at DoW facilities in summer 2027 • ~447 SMART scholars projected to begin their service commitment to the DoW civilian workforce in 2027, transitioning to full-time DoW civilian scientists and engineers. • Continue the SMART SEED grant. • Continue the SMART CREATES effort.
The increase between FY 2026 and FY 2027 of $10.023 million enables the DoW to create opportunities through the Creative Research & Engineering Advancing Technical Excellence in STEM (CREATES) awards and expand SEED and SMART scholarships for service awards while continuing to support international internships.
FY2025–FY2026: what came before
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
• Continue FY 2025 efforts. • Award up to 700-750 new scholarships to meet DoW sponsoring facility demand. • Maintain the number of awards for the SMART SEED award. • Continue the SMART Creative Research and Engineering Advancing Technical Excellence in STEM (CREATES) award to support SMART scholar graduates of and collaborations with historically Black colleges and universities, and enahnce partnerships with DoW Sponsoring Facilities (HBCUs).
• Continue FY 2024 efforts. • Continue expansion of the SMART Diversity Initiative per the Sections 242 and 250 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2021 by expanding strategic recruiting partnerships with affinity groups, non-profits, and academic institutions focused on serving underrepresented students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). • Increase Awards to 525-575 to meet DoD sponsoring facility demand. • Increase the number of awards for the SMART SEED grant. • Expand the SMART Creative Research and Engineering Advancing Technical Equity in STEM (CREATES) grant to support SMART scholar graduates of and collaborations with historically Black colleges and universities, minority institutions, or minority serving institutions in alignment with the SMART Diversity Initiative and Sections 242 and 250 of the NDAA for FY 2021.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 134.2 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 120.7 |
| FY2027 | Request | 130.7 |
This activity is 79% of project 120's FY2027 request and 79% of PE 0601120D8Z's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
4 activities in project 120
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the program-element page.