WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $75 million in funding for 77 university research awards on a range of topics in high energy physics to advance knowledge of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

The projects involve scientists at 59 U.S. institutions of higher learning across the nation, and include both experimental and theoretical research into such topics as the Higgs boson, neutrinos, dark matter, dark energy, and the search for new physics.

“Advancing research and development in high energy physics is critical to America’s leadership in science and innovation,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “These projects, spanning both theory and experiment, will involve important international collaborations as well as keep American scientists in the forefront of efforts to study and solve the mysteries of our universe.”

Projects include experimental work on neutrinos at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; the search for dark matter with the LZ (LUX-ZEPLIN) experiment one mile below the Black Hills of South Dakota; the analysis of observatory data relating to dark energy; and the investigation of the Higgs boson from data captured at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Several projects are aimed at furthering particle physics theory, while a number of others are designed to advance the sophisticated particle accelerator and detector technologies used by scientists to explore the subatomic world.

High energy physics serves as a cornerstone of America’s science efforts. It plays a major role in nurturing top scientific talent and building and sustaining the nation’s scientific workforce. It also provides a deeper understanding of how our universe works at its most fundamental level.

This year’s projects were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for Research Opportunities in High Energy Physics, sponsored by the Office of High Energy Physics within the DOE Office of Science.

Total funding is $75 million for projects lasting up to four years in duration. The list of projects and more information can be found here.