ARPA-E Grants and SBIR/STTR: Current SCALEUP Ready Route and Historical MAGNITO, ROCKS, QC3, GLASING, and SPARKS Guide

ARPA-E Grants and SBIR/STTR: Current SCALEUP Ready Route and Historical MAGNITO, ROCKS, QC3, GLASING, and SPARKS Guide

This page now has one live route and five historical reference routes. The live route is SCALEUP Ready (DE-FOA-0003467). Its official ARPA-E eXCHANGE record says the NOFO remains open until it is closed or modified and accepts applications at any time while it remains open. The same record lists the Full Application deadline as TBD, so rolling is the accurate page deadline.

MAGNITO, ROCKS, QC3, and GLASING are archived dated calls. SPARKS is also historical: its official record says the call closed effective 2026-04-28. Their terms and deadlines remain useful for understanding the opportunity set, but they are not current invitations to submit. No replacement deadline is posted on the official records reviewed for those five routes.

ARPA-E is not one program with one set of expectations. It is a collection of calls with different technical goals, award sizes, eligibility rules, and submission processes. This page covers six named opportunities:

• MAGNITO (DE-FOA-0003590)
• ROCKS (DE-FOA-0003592)
• QC3 (DE-FOA-0003482)
• GLASING (DE-FOA-0003488)
• SCALEUP Ready (DE-FOA-0003467)
• SPARKS (DE-FOA-0003164)

Treat each NOFO as a separate grant conversation. If your organization has an invention from a prior ARPA-E award, begin with the current SCALEUP Ready requirements. If you have a new idea, use the archived sections as program-matching context and search the current eXCHANGE catalog for an open call before preparing an application.

At a glance

The archived dates above are taken from the corresponding official eXCHANGE records and NOFO documents. They are not live submission dates. For a current application, use the SCALEUP Ready record and its attached documents.

What is current: SCALEUP Ready

SCALEUP Ready is for technologies that already made meaningful progress under an ARPA-E award but still face technical and commercial risks before deployment. It is not a general early-stage discovery grant. The official program description focuses on scaling and pre-pilot work that translates bench-scale performance into a version that can be integrated, manufactured, tested for extended operation, and taken toward market adoption.

The current NOFO has no single technical target because its technologies span energy applications. The applicant must define the scaling barrier, the work needed to reduce it, and the evidence that will show progress. The official terms state that the federal share may vary from $5 million to $20 million, the expected performance period is approximately 36 months, and the program budget is approximately $50 million per fiscal year subject to appropriations. These are program terms, not a promise of funding for every submission.

The live record says the NOFO will remain open until closed or modified and that applications may be submitted any time while it remains open. That is why the metadata uses rolling instead of a past date or an invented next-cycle date.

SCALEUP Ready eligibility

The proposed subject invention must have been conceived or first actually reduced to practice during work under an original ARPA-E award. By Full Application submission, the invention must have an issued patent or a domestic patent application, including a provisional application. The applicant need not be the original ARPA-E awardee; an organization with an exclusive license or purchased rights can qualify if it can document the rights needed to conduct the work and commercialize the results.

Standalone Applicants are not eligible. The project must be a team, and the official NOFO permits U.S.-incorporated for-profit entities, educational institutions, nonprofits, and FFRDCs or DOE laboratories to participate subject to its detailed rules. Educational institutions and federal laboratories may participate, but this route is designed around commercialization and does not make them the intended lead.

At least one third-party SCALEUP Ready Commercialization Partner is required. A partner may be a customer, end user, supplier, strategic investor, manufacturer, distributor, or another stakeholder with an active role in commercialization. The Full Application must include at least one Letter of Intent from a Commercialization Partner. Financial Partners are optional.

Current application steps

1. Verify the invention and rights. Document the original ARPA-E award, subject-invention record, patent status, and ownership or license rights.
2. Define the scaling gap. State the current prototype baseline, the technical or commercial barrier, the proposed pre-pilot work, and the measurable evidence that will establish progress.
3. Build the team. Assign technical work to organizations with the necessary facilities and experience. Add an active Commercialization Partner and secure the required Letter of Intent.
4. Use the optional pre-submission discussion. ARPA-E encourages discussion with a Technology-to-Market advisor; the official contact listed in the NOFO is [email protected].
5. Complete registrations. Maintain a Unique Entity Identifier and SAM registration, create or update the ARPA-E eXCHANGE account, and confirm submission and signature authority.
6. Prepare the required package. The official record lists a technical volume, project plan workbook, Letter(s) of Intent, SF-424, budget justification workbook/SF-424A, Summary for Public Release, summary slides, and Business Assurances & Disclosures Form. Follow the current NOFO for page limits, cost share, compliance, and signatures.
7. Submit while the NOFO is open. The record gives an expected finalist notification period of approximately 80 days after Full Application submission and an expected final selection period of approximately 80 days after finalist notification. These are estimates, not guaranteed decision dates.

What each program actually expects, in normal language

The titles alone are not enough. Below is the practical interpretation from the official NOFO summaries.

MAGNITO: hard science with clear performance uplift

MAGNITO is not a “materials exploration” program with fuzzy goals. The NOFO describes a very specific bar:

• discover and characterize magnets with stronger properties than known materials in either saturation magnetization or energy product;
• combine computational prediction, synthesis, and characterization;
• show that your team can move beyond just screening toward proof that a class of candidates is physically better.

Practical implication for teams:

• You need both materials-science depth and computational capability.
• If you only have one of those and no partnership pipeline for the other, expect delays and weak review comments.
• You need to propose an experiment design that reduces uncertainty quickly (not just lists a long research list).

ROCKS: mining and critical minerals with measurable characterization gains

ROCKS is about faster, more informative resource characterization in critical-mineral contexts.

The NOFO language emphasizes:

• penetration and recovery in drilling,
• better sensing/analysis chains,
• and disruptive methods that materially improve how ore characteristics are inferred for hard-rock and other resource settings.

Practical implication for teams:

• field credibility matters even if work starts in the lab;
• your signal-processing and sampling assumptions need to match how reviewers expect real deposits to behave;
• partnership and teaming readiness (industry or geology domain support) matter early.

The ROCKS listing also includes a teaming partner list setup, which indicates practical team-formation value for this area.

QC3: quantum advantage or proven path to scalable advantage

QC3 is explicit about a hard performance goal: scalable quantum methods that beat classical capability by substantial margins on energy-relevant chemistry or materials problems.

The NOFO text calls for:

• clear target problem where classical methods are insufficient;
• algorithm-to-hardware integration across the stack;
• validation against classical and experimental baselines;
• explicit scalability and hardware resource planning.

Practical implication for teams:

• you must pick a real problem where quantum methods can plausibly dominate, not just “quantum for quantum’s sake”;
• claims of 100x improvement require a validation plan that is technically credible at your stage.

A team that treats the NOFO as a “future-proofing science grant” instead of a strict algorithm-to-impact program usually gets a weak fit reading from reviewers.

GLASING: high-performance windows with manufacturing realism

GLASING is a concrete product-outcome challenge:

• improve thermal performance in Insulated Glass Units (IGUs), with target thermal benchmark above legacy standards;
• move beyond material novelty to manufacturing scalability and durability.

The official summary includes these practical targets:

• 0.6 m × 0.6 m IGU prototypes,
• whole-window thermal targets above the conventional low-e/argon baseline,
• third-party thermal/optical/durability testing.

Practical implication for teams:

• prototypes must be framed as manufacturable units, not lab curiosities;
• you need testing and reliability strategy, not just materials science narrative;
• optics, optics-haze, edge sealing, vacuum stability, and process consistency are likely as important as material novelty.

SCALEUP Ready: the route after early-stage ARPA-E success

SCALEUP Ready supports pre-commercial scaling of promising technologies previously funded by ARPA-E. The proposed work should build substantially on the original award, not restart proof-of-concept research. The official NOFO expects an existing early-stage prototype, a path to market, a team capable of scaling the technology, and a plan for manufacturing, integration, reliability, and performance evidence.

The program requires a Project Team rather than a standalone application. It also requires at least one active Commercialization Partner and a Letter of Intent in the Full Application. A first-time discovery team with no qualifying ARPA-E subject invention should not use this route.

SPARKS: small, fast, exploratory, and now closed

SPARKS is broad on topic but narrow on size and speed:

• single-phase projects,
• durations around 18 months or less,
• total project cost of $500,000 or less,
• concepts not covered by an open focused FOA and not incremental.

Practical implication for teams:

• this can be a good entry point only if your idea is genuinely new and outside an existing focused call;
• the official record says this FOA closed effective 2026-04-28, so it is not a live submission route. Check the current catalog for any replacement FOA before planning a new exploratory application.

Who this page is for

This page is for:

• principal investigators and founders who can already show evidence of technical capability;
• teams with at least one collaborator who understands commercialization constraints (or is committed to adding one);
• teams deciding whether to invest in full proposal preparation.

It is probably not useful for teams still at problem-framing stage with no domain or execution commitment.

Who is the best candidate for each route

Strong grant NOFO route candidates

• University, lab, or mixed teams with rigorous technical depth and access to required facilities.
• teams with a clearly bounded research question and measurable milestones.
• teams that can tolerate a potentially high-risk technical path with a well-defined risk management plan.

Strong SBIR/STTR candidates

• small businesses with a plausible commercialization pathway and market need.
• teams with early customer understanding, partnering strategy, and post-award commercialization plan.
• teams that can propose near-term commercialization and technical milestones together.

Good candidates for all NOFO types (with different writeups)

• teams with strong cross-functional collaboration where one team owns the science and one owns integration/commercialization.
• teams that already have access to test infrastructure or secure it before proposal submission.

Teams that should probably skip now

• teams without access to critical resources (compute, fabrication, mineral field access, glass-matrix testing, or quantum hardware access as relevant);
• teams with only a broad idea and no problem-specific benchmark target;
• teams waiting on missing registrations, approvals, and signatures to do late-stage assembly.

Eligibility and compliance checks before writing

Before drafting anything, complete this checklist:

• Organization type and route: grant NOFO vs SBIR/STTR distinction must be real, not just a naming preference.
• Date windows: confirm current CP/FA dates and any “open until replaced” language directly on each NOFO.
• U.S. presence expectations and eligible entity constraints from each NOFO’s application materials.
• Registration and legal prerequisites (institutional signoff, portal access, any required profiles and registrations).
• Required attachments: technical volume, budget worksheets, forms, public summary, assurance/disclosure pages.
• Contact channels: keep [email protected] for portal, [email protected] for FOA questions.

Do this once, upfront. It prevents 90% of unforced rejection risk.

Route decision: which program should be your first target?

Do not write six proposals and submit none.

Use this triage:

1. Pick one technical anchor from your team’s strongest domain.
2. Map that anchor to program objectives.
3. Verify that objective is still open and currently relevant.
4. Confirm internal capacity to deliver evidence by full proposal date.
5. Draft only for the top fit.
6. Expand to secondary routes only after draft quality and proof points are stable.

Route decision pattern

Practical application process

Current SCALEUP Ready workflow

Use the current SCALEUP Ready NOFO, not the archived dates in the table. First verify that the project is based on a subject invention from an ARPA-E award and that patent or domestic patent-application evidence will be ready. Then define the scale barrier, the baseline, the proposed work, and the evidence that will show improved manufacturability, reliability, integration, cost, or deployment readiness.

Build the Project Team around the work that must happen after proof of concept. Identify at least one Commercialization Partner that will actively contribute, and obtain the required Letter of Intent. Complete UEI and SAM requirements, prepare the eXCHANGE account, and assign responsibility for the application’s technical, financial, legal, and signature components.

The current record lists these Full Application materials: technical volume, project plan workbook, Letter(s) of Intent, SF-424, budget justification workbook/SF-424A, Summary for Public Release, summary slides, and Business Assurances & Disclosures Form. Check the current NOFO for exact formatting and compliance instructions. Submit through ARPA-E eXCHANGE while the NOFO remains open; rolling does not mean that a proposal can skip review, registration, or required attachments.

Archived two-stage workflow

MAGNITO, ROCKS, QC3, and GLASING used a concept-paper stage followed by a Full Application for selected or encouraged applicants. Those dates are closed. A historical reader can use the sequence to understand how ARPA-E tested fit early, but should not send material to an archived record or copy its deadline into a current plan. The SBIR/STTR companion route also matters: a small business should use the companion FOA when that route is specified, rather than assuming the main grant NOFO and SBIR/STTR NOFO are interchangeable.

For any future ARPA-E call, read the official program objective, exclusions, eligibility section, required documents, review criteria, and current amendments before writing. Keep one technical claim, one measurable outcome, and one accountable owner for each major milestone. Submit early enough to resolve portal, signature, and attachment problems.

Required package checklist

For the live SCALEUP Ready route, the official record specifically lists the technical volume, project plan workbook, Letter(s) of Intent, SF-424, budget justification workbook/SF-424A, Summary for Public Release, summary slides, and Business Assurances & Disclosures Form. The list below is a working quality check; the current NOFO and its attached templates control the final submission.

Technical plan (most important)

• Problem statement and specific objective.
• Exact metric and target threshold.
• Milestone chart by quarter or month.
• Clear failure criteria and alternate approaches.

Budget and administration

• Labor and subcontracting assumptions,
• equipment/testing costs,
• travel only when justified by technical need,
• budget justification tied to milestones.

Evidence and collaboration documents

• collaborator commitments with scope and time windows,
• facility access letters (instrument time, field windows, fabrication/compute bookings),
• commercialization support letters only where needed.

Public-facing summary

ARPA-E often asks for accessible summaries. Make sure it can stand without jargon.

For the historical SPARKS route only

• keep the concept compact,
• avoid oversized scope,
• show why the concept was outside existing active focused FOAs; SPARKS is closed and this is not a current submission instruction.

10-step readiness checklist (use before submission)

1. Can we name the NOFO objective in one sentence?
2. Is the target metric measurable with clear units?
3. Can we show why this path is likely better than alternatives?
4. Are all roles, facilities, and dependencies assigned?
5. Is the budget defensible and aligned to milestones?
6. Does the current NOFO require a concept paper, a Full Application, or both, and have we followed that exact route?
7. Does our team have evidence-generation access before kickoff?
8. Are we not claiming outcomes that depend on infrastructure beyond our control?
9. Are all administrative and compliance steps complete?
10. Do we have a backup scope if a key collaborator drops?

If more than two items are “not yet,” pause writing and fill gaps before adding pages.

Common mistakes (and how to avoid them)

• Mistake: treating all programs as one broad “ARPA-E track.”

  • Fix: pick one NOFO and force every sentence to support that objective.

• Mistake: overpromising technology impact without clear measurement.

  • Fix: replace every claim with a number, a test, and a date.

• Mistake: treating the closed SPARKS record as a current rolling route.

  • Fix: check eXCHANGE for a replacement FOA before preparing a new exploratory submission.

• Mistake: last-minute compliance catch-up.

  • Fix: complete portal account and attachment structure before writing final pages.

• Mistake: missing the “not covered by active focused FOA” constraint.

  • Fix: explicitly mention why your idea sits outside active topic-specific calls.

• Mistake: assuming prior ARPA-E success automatically grants fit for SCALEUP Ready.

  • Fix: show specific scale, cost, reliability, and integration risks you will reduce.

Program-specific caveats you should track before submission

• MAGNITO and ROCKS are technically demanding and reward teams with real team diversity across simulation, experiments, and analysis.
• QC3 requires a credible hardware-aware plan, even if full quantum scale is not yet possible.
• GLASING rewards manufacturability realism; prototype demonstration pathways matter as much as peak material performance.
• SCALEUP Ready works only if you are demonstrably in the “pre-commercial scaling” lane.
• SPARKS is closed effective 2026-04-28; verify any replacement FOA before planning.

FAQ

Are these programs only for universities?

No. Several are open to small businesses via SBIR/STTR companion routes, while others have grant routes for broader organizations. Route by eligibility, not by sector.

Is SPARKS currently open?

The official record shows DE-FOA-0003164 closed effective 2026-04-28. Its terms were single-phase, 18 months or less, and total project cost of $500,000 or less. Check the current catalog or any replacement FOA for an updated status.

Do I need a non-incremental idea?

For SPARKS, yes: it is intended for concepts not covered by active focused FOAs and not incremental improvements. For the focused NOFOs (MAGNITO, ROCKS, QC3, GLASING), incrementality is assessed against their specific stated goals and expected novelty.

Can MAGNITO and ROCKS both fit my team?

Possibly, but not as two parallel full submissions from one team without distinct technical framing. It is usually better to pick one as primary and leave secondary concepts for future cycles.

Can one proposal support both grant and SBIR/STTR?

You should avoid duplicative cross-route submissions of the same concept unless each has genuine, separated objectives and compliance routes. Mixing routes confuses review narrative.

Where should I check the most current details?

Directly on ARPA-E eXCHANGE and the specific NOFO pages linked below. The “official page” is the source for current dates, attachment updates, and status.

How do I reduce rejection risk quickly?

Do three things: one metric per objective, one schedule per milestone, one partner commitment per external dependency.

Official links and current references

• Current verified index used for this page: DE-FOA-0003467 (SCALEUP Ready)
• ROCKS listing: DE-FOA-0003592
• QC3 listing: DE-FOA-0003482
• GLASING listing: DE-FOA-0003488
• SCALEUP Ready listing: DE-FOA-0003467
• SPARKS listing: DE-FOA-0003164
• ARPA-E main exchange hub: ARPA-E Funding Opportunities

If these links change after you read this page, follow the “official links” and then reopen the latest NOFO PDFs and attachments before writing the final draft.

Next steps

1. Open the NOFO page for your top-fit program.
2. Confirm the current NOFO/FOA status and dates.
3. Build a 1-page “fit + milestones + evidence” brief.
4. Use that brief as the first chapter of your concept paper or full application.
5. Prepare the compliance package in parallel with technical writing, not afterward.