{"response":{"award":[{"abstractText":"The significance of the Alaska Critical Mineral Accelerator (ACMA) is its potential to strengthen U.S. supply chains for critical minerals essential to energy, advanced manufacturing, and national security. Alaska hosts vast but underdeveloped mineral resources, yet technical, environmental, and logistical challenges limit their discovery, recovery, and domestic production. The project will address these barriers by building a place-based innovation ecosystem that connects research, industry, communities, and workforce development to accelerate the translation of new technologies into practice and expand economic opportunity across the state. The project aims to advance integrated solutions across the mineral lifecycle, from exploration and discovery to recovery and production, while prioritizing efficient, lower-impact approaches. It aims to improve discovery success and increase recovery from low-grade materials and mine waste, reducing impact while lowering development cost and risk. These advances could unlock new resource opportunities, extend the life of existing operations that are vital to regional and community economies, and support more economically viable projects in remote regions of Alaska. Coordinated partnerships   among academia, Alaska Native Corporations, industry, tech start-ups, national laboratories, state and federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations will align research with operational needs and create pathways from discovery to deployment. \r\n\r\nThe project aims to expand workforce training and career pathways that broaden participation and support high-quality jobs, particularly in remote Alaska communities. By strengthening local workforce capacity and enabling new business and supply chain opportunities, the Engine will contribute to long-term economic growth, regional stability, and domestic industrial capacity. The goals and scope of the Alaska Critical Mineral Accelerator (ACMA) are to develop and deploy integrated approaches that improve the discovery, evaluation, extraction, recovery, and production of critical minerals. The project plans to reduce exploration risk, improve critical mineral recovery, and support responsible domestic production by linking advances in data, processing, and field validation within a coordinated framework. \r\n\r\n The project is organized around three technical areas. First, it intends to improve mineral discovery by integrating geological, geochemical, geophysical, remote-sensing, and legacy data into AI-based systems, including metal-isotope geochemical approaches to identify concealed mineral deposits and reduce uncertainty in ore-deposit targeting. Second, it aims to advance recovery methods for primary resources and mine waste through materials characterization, bio-based extraction, and mineral processing to increase recovery efficiency while lowering energy use. Third, it plans to test and validate technologies in laboratory and field settings, including active and legacy mining districts in Alaska, to evaluate performance under Arctic conditions and reduce scale-up risk. Methods will combine data integration, machine learning, and uncertainty analysis with laboratory experiments and field validation, directly linking discovery to recovery and production decisions. Implementation through coordinated partnerships will ensure alignment with operational needs and clear pathways to deployment. These advances will strengthen domestic supply chains and support a scalable, economically viable model for resource development in Alaska and the United States. \r\n\r\nThis project is partially funded in collaboration between NSF TIP and the NSF Directorate for Office of International Science and Engineering.\r\n\r\nThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.","activeAwd":"true","agency":"NSF","awardAgencyCode":"4900","awardee":"UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS","awardeeAddress":"2145 N TANANA LOOP","awardeeCity":"FAIRBANKS","awardeeCountryCode":"US","awardeeDistrict":"00","awardeeDistrictCode":"AK00","awardeeName":"University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus","awardeePhone":"9074747301","awardeeStateCode":"AK","awardeeZipCode":"99775","cfdaNumber":"47.050, 47.079, 47.084","coPDPI":["Erin Whitney Erin.Whitney@hq.doe.gov","Steven S Masterman ssmasterman@alaska.edu","lance D miller lance.miller@nana.com","Elizabeth Percak-Dennett Liz@endolithmining.com"],"date":"07/14/2026","dirAbbr":"TIP","divAbbr":"ITE","estimatedTotalAmt":"15000000","expDate":"07/31/2036","fundAgencyCode":"4900","fundProgramName":"GVF - Global Venture Fund, NSF Engines - Type 2, NSF CriticalMinerals&Materials","fundsObligated":["FY 2026 = $10,500,000.00"],"fundsObligatedAmt":"10500000","histAwd":"false","id":"2532372","initAmendmentDate":"07/14/2026","latestAmendmentDate":"08/24/2026","managingPec":"301Y00","orgCodeDir":"15000000","orgCodeDiv":"15020000","orgLongName":"Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships","orgLongName2":"Innovation and Technology Ecosystems","orgUrl":"https://beta.nsf.gov/tip/ite","parentUeiNumber":"KNP1HA2B9BF8","pdPIName":"Lee A Munk","perfAddress":"2145 N TANANA LOOP","perfCity":"FAIRBANKS","perfCountryCode":"US","perfDistrict":"00","perfDistrictCode":"AK00","perfLocation":"University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus","perfStateCode":"AK","perfZipCode":"997755940","pi":["Lee A Munk lamunk@alaska.edu"],"piEmail":"lamunk@alaska.edu","piFirstName":"Lee","piId":"269720893","piLastName":"Munk","piMiddeInitial":"A","poEmail":"mreksula@nsf.gov","poName":"Michael Reksulak","poPhone":"7032928326","primaryProgram":["01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT","01002728DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT"],"progEleCode":"054y00, 301Y00, 357Y00","program":"Industry Partnerships, TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION, Critical Minerals & Materials, Translational Research, Accelerating Innovation Rsrch, Advanced Materials Processing, Building Innovation Capacity, Workforce Development, EXP PROG TO STIM COMP RES","progRefCode":"021Z, 117E, 136Z, 158Z, 8019, 8025, 8085, 8816, 9150","publicAccessMandate":"1","startDate":"08/01/2026","title":"NSF Critical Mineral Accelerator Engine in Alaska","transType":"Cooperative Agreement","ueiNumber":"FDLEQSJ8FF63"}],"metadata":{"offset":0,"rpp":25,"totalCount":1}}}