The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Marine Meteorology and Aeronomy Team recognizes that the preparation of a full proposal is a time-consuming and often costly proposition for the investigator. Therefore, before a full proposal is written, investigators are encouraged to write and submit concise planning letters. Planning letters allow investigators to submit their ideas in confidence for program officers to evaluate, provide technical feedback and offer some indication of the likelihood of success for a full proposal based on program interests and priorities. Investigators who are invited to submit full proposals are reminded that the invitation to submit does not represent a commitment to fund the proposal.
** A new process for planning letters and full proposal submission under the BAA (e.g. Grants and Contracts, not for funding to the internal Navy Research Enterprise and UARCs) is at https://submissions.nre.navy.mil. We recommend that you still e-mail them as backup as this is brand new for FY26. **
Planning letters should include:
- The words “Planning Letter” and the lead principal investigator's last name and institution on the subject line.
- Contact information for the principal and co-investigators, including a full mailing address, email address and phone number for each.
- A synopsis of no more than ten pages for the proposed research project (not including references, CV’s or cost estimates), including a rationale, questions and/or hypotheses to be addressed, the methods to be used and anticipated results. This should be comparable to an executive summary of a full proposal, and a short description of the role of each investigator should be included in this summary.
- Investigators should focus on what is new, groundbreaking or potentially transformative about the proposed research. For extramural Basic and early Applied Research, investigators are not required to address the relevance of the proposed research to the Navy in detail.
- No more than one page describing the estimated budget, with approximate cost per year—any major equipment procurements or unusual costs (e.g., ship, aircraft, major instrumentation, high performance computing services) should be identified and described as other direct costs.
- Budgets should be submitted by fiscal year, rather than academic or calendar year. Typical awards are generally no more than two to three years in the Base effort, with any additional support requests as Options, and are generally for partial (e.g. summer) salary and a graduate student or postdoc for academic and tenured or tenure-track researchers.
- Up to one page of relevant references from the literature.
- A one-page biographical sketch for each investigator, with a focus on research activities and publications relevant to the proposed research.
Planning letter files for core program support should use this naming convention: LASTNAME_322MM_CORE_FYXX.
Planning letter files for special initiatives such as Departmental Research Initiatives (6.1) or Tech Candidates (6.2) should be named LASTNAME_322MM_AAA_FYXX where AAA is the name of the special initiative and the XX is replaced by the Fiscal Year in which the grant will potentially start.
All planning letters should be submitted as PDF files no later than June 1 for Oct-Dec starts by e-mail to ONR.NCR.322MM@us.navy.mil
Please include "Planning Letter" and your last name/ institution in the subject line.