Review and prospect on management of transportation and vehicle engineering discipline under NSFC in 2025

The transportation and vehicle engineering discipline under the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) focuses on the economic development and the national major strategic demands, continuously strengthens "demand-driven and problem-oriented" research, and conducts systematic, transformative, disruptive and leading studies. The discipline can rapidly break through the "technical gap" between basic research and its practical application through organized scientific research and the aggregation of disciplinary forces. This paper provides an overview of the application, acceptance, and funding status NSFC projects in the discipline of transportation and vehicle engineering in 2025. Guided by major and key projects, the typical cases of systematic, disruptive, and original research within the discipline are analyzed, and the priority funding areas and key project guidelines for 2026 are interpreted. For 2026, the discipline plans to prioritize funding for the following areas: design and control of new high-efficiency transport vehicles, collaborative operation/management of multiple transport vehicles, end-to-end autonomous driving testing for transport vehicles, integrated design of aircraft and their flight control, key technologies/equipment for reusable space transportation systems/on-orbit refuelling, as well as integrated low-altitude traffic planning and coordinated operation within comprehensive three-dimensional transportation networks.