Big Ideas
Big Ideas
Promoting Awareness and Team Building
Each section below represents an area of state or national opportunity for MSU grantseekers to develop ideas around. A Teams Group has been created for each topic to facilitate team-building and serve as a platform for communications between interested parties. This is where you can view shared literature, contacts, and data related to the topic area.
Transforming Mississippi's Energy Future
The MSU Energy & Innovation Hub (E‑Hub) is an internal collaborative cluster designed to build on MSU’s existing strengths and research in energy systems, including clean generation, grid resilience, fuel transitions, storage technologies, AI/robotics, and carbon utilization. It will catalyze interdisciplinary synergy across MSU faculty, centers, and campus resources, and serve as a centralized access point for external partners—industry, state and federal agencies. Initial R&D priorities will focus on: natural gas infrastructure modernization and hydrogen blending; and energy storage innovation; AI/robotic analytics for asset monitoring; CO₂ capture and utilization; hydrogen and geothermal energy; rare‑earth recovery from coal ash; workforce development and workforce automation. The E‑Hub will advance MSU’s relevance to Southern Company’s R&D pillars and broader energy policy, economic development, and national climate agendas.
DARPA Tactical Technology BAA
The DARPA Tactical Technology Office (TTO) is soliciting innovative executive summaries and proposals that enhance the nation’s ability to rapidly build, adapt and sustain force structures with the following focus areas: Design/Build/Buy, Surge and Sustain, Long Range Effects, and Disruptive Innovation. MSU has significant expertise and capabilities to engage in several of the priority areas which are described in detail below. Please feel free to use this platform to seek collaborators, facilitate communication, and request any support needed to prepare a response.
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Executive summaries are accepted through April 17, 2026. Executive Summary instructions (attachment A) are located in the documents section below.
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The full BAA may be found here: https://grants.gov/search-results-detail/359782
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A “Proposer's Day” event will be held October 1-2, 2025, for which info will be shared on or about August 4th.
Opioid Treatment & Prevention
It is expected that approximately $370M in new funding will be directed to Mississippi as a result of opioid litigation settlements. The MS Legislature has created the Opioid Settlement Advisory Council and Opioid Settlement Fund Committee to determine and manage allocation of these funds. While we await further details on how funds will be made available, we would like to gauge interest among faculty and staff who have potential research and/or outreach initiatives related to the opioid crisis and its implications on Mississippians in order to position MSU grantseekers for quick turnaround on proposals. Funding priorities are expected to include addiction treatment and prevention activities.