STOMP Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

STOMP Proposers’ Day will be held on Wednesday, April 22, 2026 from 8:30 AM to 4 PM in Arlington, VA, with the option to attend virtually. In-person registrants will receive details on the venue after registration. For convenience, both in-person and virtual attendees will receive a link for remote attendance. For details on agenda please see the Special Notice: (ARPA-H-SN-26-150) on SAM.gov. 

Register for Proposers’ Day at https://solutions.arpa-h.gov/Events/STOMP/ and ensure each individual registers separately. Please see the Special Notice (ARPA-H-SN-26-150) on SAM.gov for more information on Proposers’ day. 

Poster presentations are only available for in-person attendees. Virtual attendees are encouraged to use the Teaming Profiles to facilitate connections with other prospective performers.

No, now that the STOMP ISO is live, the STOMP team cannot hold one-on-one discussions or offer feedback to potential proposers. Proposers are encouraged to review the ISO closely and attend Proposers’ Day for details on what is in-scope for the program. 

Please reach out to stomp@arpa-h.gov if you would like to change your registration information. 

Only participants who are registered and approved to present a poster should plan to bring a poster. They will be allotted a 48inches high by 36inches area on a tack board. No other technical materials are required from potential proposers for STOMP Proposers' Day.

No. While the STOMP solicitation is live, we are prohibited from having 1:1 conversations with interested proposers. All technical materials brought to STOMP Proposers' Day are intended for sharing with the scientific community to encourage teaming and collaboration.

• The Proposers' Day will be held from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Eastern Time on April 22, 2026.  
• Doors open and webinar login begins for registered attendees at 8:30AM.  
• A final agenda, including details regarding the Poster Session, will be emailed to registered attendees before the meeting. We estimate that the ARPA-H presentations will start at 9am and finish by 1pm, with the afternoon being held for the poster session.

No. Only participants who are registered and approved to present a poster should plan to bring a poster. No other formal technical presentations from the potential proposer community are scheduled for Proposers' Day.

After Proposers’ Day, Solution Summaries can be submitted to the ARPA-H Solutions Portal by selecting STOMP under “Which ARPA-H solicitation does this apply to?” tab.

Indirect costs on Federal awards to foreign organizations and foreign public entities, without a federally negotiated indirect cost rate agreement, performed fully outside the territorial limits of the U.S. may be paid to support the costs of compliance with federal requirements at a fixed rate of 8%.

ARPA-H can directly fund a foreign entity; however, ARPA-H will prioritize awards to entities that conduct funded work in the U.S., as per 42 USC § 290c(n)(1). Awards will not be made to entities organized under the laws of a covered foreign country, defined in the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. § 3059) as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. Each solicitation defines eligibility and requirements so please review the solicitation for detailed instructions. For more information, see the International Affairs FAQs.

FFRDCs and UARCs are not eligible to propose directly to STOMP as either prime or sub-proposers. Exceptions may be considered for unique capabilities with documentation required. Contact STOMP@arpa-h.gov for direct FFRDC or UARC collaboration.

No. Although it is expected that successful solutions may consist of teams with interdisciplinary expertise and/or multi-PI teams, association with an already established multi-PI research center is not an eligibility requirement for STOMP.

ARPA-H doesn’t own or operate its own research labs – rather, it oversees research that takes place at various facilities around the country. Thus, the STOMP program is unable to collect samples from interested participants. Once the awardees are announced, the interested donors may reach out to the performers and inquire about it.

ARPA-H has committed $144 million to the STOMP program and anticipates making multiple awards. In accordance with ISO Section 5.4.3, Assessment of Proposed Cost/Price, proposers are encouraged to submit a fully justified budget that is appropriate for the scope, complexity, and risk of their proposed technical approach. ARPA-H will evaluate the reasonableness and value of the proposed cost in the context of the work to be accomplished, rather than against a predetermined budget amount or range.

ARPA-H is a funding agency driving transformation of biomedical and health breakthroughs. Thus, addressing regulation or environmental research is out of scope for STOMP. However, STOMP is designed to be complementary to work being done in other agencies and organizations that are better positioned to address these questions. Critically, we do not yet know what the bad types of plastics are - STOMP will help answer that question. If 1-2 types are indeed particularly damaging to human health, regulations and/or legislation could be put into place to address this. It is ultimately unrealistic to imagine a world completely devoid of plastics given their current ubiquity - and those microplastics that have already accumulated in our bodies could create downstream damage if not removed.

Application to BOTH TA1 and TA2 is allowed but not required. Teams may choose to apply to both TA1 and TA2, just TA1, or just TA2.

While additives can be an important contributor to toxicity, to balance expediency, risk and focus, they are out of scope for STOMP.

STOMP requires data sharing across the different teams performing TAs 1-3. While no specific data frameworks are required, proposers are encouraged to describe how they will facilitate data sharing to meet the requirements outlined in the ISO. 

For TA1, teams should be able to demonstrate identification and quantification of both known levels of MNPs (e.g., spiked) within biological samples in addition to identification and quantification of MNPs in biological samples where accumulation is unknown but may be suspected (e.g., in tissue samples following exposure).

The intent of TA1.3 is to determine if non-invasively collected bodily fluid MNP levels are a valid reporter for MNPs deposition in tissues. Both bodily fluid and tissue samples are required to make this determination. As outlined in the STOMP ISO: Performers must enroll at least 100 subjects (or provide power analysis and justification for proposed sample size) in the study and collect two bodily fluids (urine, blood, etc.) and one type of tissue (surgical, biopsy, etc.), at the minimum. See STOMP ISO for further technical details and requirements. 

Use of organoid models may be considered under specific contexts and must be technically justified for the associated milestone. However, animal models are required for several milestones as outlined in the STOMP ISO.