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✓ Funding ✓ 6 Divisions ✓ Collaborative culture
PEP Workforce expands, develops, and celebrates naval engineering
PEP represents a highly effective mechanism for fulfilling its mission to discover, develop, and deliver future naval capabilities while cultivating the scientific workforce required to sustain America’s technological advantage. ONR was established to foster scientific research and maintain future naval power, and the competition serves as an early-stage innovation ecosystem where students apply emerging technologies in electric propulsion, batteries, autonomous systems, sensors, controls, and advanced materials. The competition encourages experimentation, rapid prototyping, and hands-on engineering in ways that closely mirror ONR’s broader investments in research and technology development. By supporting PEP, ONR helps create a community of future engineers and researchers who are already familiar with naval challenges and motivated to pursue careers supporting the Navy and Marine Corps.
PEP strengthens the Defense Industrial Base, the Maritime Industrial Base, and the Submarine Industrial Base.
- Defense Industrial Base (DIB): PEP Workforce strengthens the Defense Industrial Base by developing a pipeline of engineers, scientists, and technicians with hands-on experience in propulsion, autonomous systems, energy storage, advanced manufacturing, and systems integration technologies critical to national defense.
- Maritime Industrial Base (MIB): PEP Workforce strengthens the Maritime Industrial Base by connecting students, universities, government laboratories, shipyards, and maritime employers through applied naval engineering projects that build the skilled workforce needed to design, build, and sustain future maritime platforms.
- Submarine Industrial Base (SIB): PEP Workforce strengthens the Submarine Industrial Base by preparing students in disciplines such as propulsion, power systems, hydrodynamics, advanced materials, systems engineering, and testing that are essential for the development, construction, and sustainment of next-generation submarines.