(Estimate read time: 4-6 minutes)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency in the United States that supports fundamental research and education in all non-medical fields of science and engineering. With a budget of over $9 billion, the NSF funds approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities, and solutions-oriented research with the potential to produce advancements for the American people. It is the only federal agency that invests in fundamental, basic
research and education across the full spectrum of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Funding Sources
NSF funding comes primarily from federal appropriations, which are allocated by Congress. Each year, Congress reviews and determines the NSF budget, which is then distributed across various programs and initiatives. This federal investment underscores the importance of science and technology in driving economic growth, national security, and overall societal well-being. In addition to federal appropriations, NSF occasionally receives funds from other sources such as private donations and partnerships with other federal agencies.
The FY2023 Financial Report illustrates the breakdown of appropriations: 79% for Research and Related Activities, 14% for STEM Education, 5% for Agency Operations and Award Management, 2% for Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction, and less than 1% each for the Office of Inspector General and the National Science Board. The report also details how these funds are allocated, emphasizing contracts, cooperative agreements, and grants to colleges, universities, and academic consortia, along with funding for federally funded R&D centers and private industry.
Current Focus Areas of NSF
The National Science Foundation (NSF) focuses its funding on a wide range of scientific disciplines and research areas to promote the progress of science, advance national health, prosperity, and welfare, and secure national defense. NSF’s primary focus areas include:
Biological Sciences: Research that enhances our understanding of living systems and biodiversity.
Computer and Information Science and Engineering: Projects that drive innovation in computing, information processing, and cybersecurity.
Education and Human Resources: Initiatives aimed at improving STEM education and increasing participation from underrepresented groups.
Engineering: Research that advances engineering principles and leads to technological innovations.
Geosciences: Studies focused on Earth’s environment, from climate change to geological processes.
Mathematical and Physical Sciences: Fundamental research in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, physics, and materials science.
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences: Investigations into human behavior, social systems, and economic processes.
Projects most likely to receive NSF funding typically exhibit:
Intellectual Merit: The project must advance knowledge and understanding within its field or across different fields.
Broader Impacts: The research should benefit society or advance specific societal outcomes, such as improving STEM education, increasing public scientific literacy, and fostering inclusion and diversity in STEM fields.
Innovation and Originality: Proposals that present novel and potentially transformative ideas or approaches.
Feasibility: A clear, well-organized plan for carrying out the proposed research, including methodologies and anticipated results.
Collaboration and Interdisciplinary Approach: Projects that involve collaboration across multiple disciplines or institutions often stand out.
For more detailed information on how NSF make funding decisions, visit their official website.
Types of funding
For early-career researchers: Career Development Awards
These grants support early-career faculty members who show potential for leadership in research and education. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a prominent example, providing substantial support for junior faculty to develop their research and educational careers, where recipients will receive a minimum of $400,000 over a five-year period.
Other opportunities:
Name | Description | Funding |
Building Research Capacity of New Faculty in Biology (BRC-BIO) | Supports pre-tenure faculty in the biological sciences at non-R1 institutions, enabling them to increase their research capacity and build independent research programs. | Awards provide up to $450,000 plus $50,000 for equipment over a 36-month period. |
Focuses on reducing the rate at which early-career researchers depart from the STEM workforce. Allow NSF-funded researchers to support additional personnel — such as a technician or research assistant — when an investigator, postdoctoral fellow or graduate student is on family leave for primary dependent care responsibilities or other direct family considerations. | Awards provide up to $30,000 for up to six months of salary or stipend support for additional personnel. | |
Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) | Supports early-career scientists at non-R1 institutions in computer and information science and engineering who lack access to organizational resources. | Awards provide up to $175,000 over a 24-month period. |
Supports exploratory work in early stages on untested but potentially transformative research ideas or approaches that are considered “high-risk, high-reward.” | Awards provide up to $300,000 for a period of up to two years. | |
Supports activities that advance STEM education research. | Awards provide up to $350,000 over a three-year period. | |
Supports new investigators at non-R1 institutions as they initiate their engineering research programs and advance in their careers as researchers, educators and innovators. | Awards provide up to $200,000 over a 24-month period. | |
Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) | Supports the research of pre-tenure faculty in mathematical and physical sciences, with an emphasis on those at institutions that traditionally do not receive significant NSF funding, such as minority-serving institutions, predominantly undergraduate institutions and R2 universities. | Awards provide up to $250,000 of support over a 24-month period. |
For postdoctoral and graduate researchers: Fellowships
NSF provides fellowships for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to support their education and early-career research activities. Notable fellowship programs include the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) and the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships.
For entrepreneurs: Funding and Fellowships
These grants support research and development projects by small businesses that have the potential for commercialization. The SBIR and STTR programs aim to stimulate technological innovation and encourage the participation of small businesses in federal research and development.
Other opportunities:
Name | Who can apply | Description |
Researchers at universities, for-profit and nonprofit organizations | Teams funded by the program must complete an innovation curriculum under the guidance of mentors and coaches who help steer their projects toward high-impact, societally focused deliverables. Teams can receive up to $5.75 million across two phases. | |
Individuals with doctorates in an NSF-supported STEM discipline | Fellows receive an annual stipend of $78,000, optional individual health and life insurance benefits, relocation assistance to the approved host company, a professional conference travel allowance, and scripted professional development training. | |
Individuals with research, engineering or technology development experience | Fellows receive at least $350,000 in direct support over two years, including a stipend, travel allowance, research funding and additional flexible capital. | |
University-based researchers | Researchers participate in the seven-week program as a team of three that consists of a technical lead, entrepreneurial lead and business mentor. Participants learn the art of customer discovery and business planning from seasoned entrepreneurs. |
Writing your grant proposal to NSF
According to the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), proposals must include a clear and concise project summary that outlines the objectives, significance, and potential impact of the research. The project description should be thorough, including a background section, objectives, methodologies, expected results, and a discussion of the project's broader impacts. NSF emphasizes the importance of addressing its two main review criteria: Intellectual Merit, which evaluates the potential of the research to advance knowledge, and Broader Impacts, which considers the benefits to society, such as enhancing STEM education and increasing public scientific literacy. Additionally, proposals should feature a realistic and detailed budget, justified with clear explanations for each item.
Increase your chances of securing NSF funding with LetPub’s Grant Editing and Evaluation Service. Our expert editors, who have extensive experience in NSF proposal review and submission, will assist you in creating a polished and persuasive proposal. For more in-depth guidance, consider attending Peeref’s grant writing webinars specifically tailored for researchers.
Partnerships with Organizations and Institutions
Harvard University
Project: Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms (CUA)
Description: The CUA research activities are divided into four major areas. The first area focuses on quantum gases of atoms and molecules and aims at expanding control over many-body systems in multiple directions, including long-range forces and novel geometries (bilayer systems, frustrated lattices, gauge fields). The second area is programmable arrays of Rydberg atoms and molecules. They will be used to explore highly-entangled phases of matter, to perform fundamental research on error correction, and to pursue new applications, e.g., to quantum chemistry. The third area exploits atom-like and hybrid systems, including spin defects and trapped electrons and excitons in two-dimensional geometries. These solid-state systems will enable quantum simulations with strong interactions and new applications in sensing and metrology. The fourth area focuses on strongly coupled atoms and photons. The larger goal is to enable new capabilities for engineering many-body states of atoms and photons, with applications in quantum nonlinear optics, quantum metrology, and networking.
Published Papers:
- Lin Su, Alexander Douglas, Michal Szurek, Robin Groth, S. Furkan Ozturk, Aaron Krahn, Anne H. Hebert, Gregory A. Phelps, Sepehr Ebadi, Susannah Dickerson, Francesca Ferlaino, Ognjen Markovic, Markus Greiner. (2023). Dipolar quantum solids emerging in a Hubbard quantum simulator. NATURE. 10.1038/s41586-023-06614-3.
- Simon J. Evered, Dolev Bluvstein, Marcin Kalinowski, Sepehr Ebadi, Tom Manovitz, Hengyun Zhou, Sophie H. Li, Alexandra A. Geim, Tout T. Wang, Nishad Maskara, Harry Levine, Giulia Semeghini, Markus Greiner, Vladan Vuletić, Mikhail D. Lukin. (2023). High-fidelity parallel entangling gates on a neutral-atom quantum computer. NATURE. 10.1038/s41586-023-06481-y.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Project: Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE)
Description: The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a major international scientific endeavor aimed at advancing our understanding of neutrinos, one of the most fundamental and elusive particles in the universe. It involves over 1,000 scientists from more than 30 countries and is one of the most ambitious projects in particle physics. NSF funds the construction and maintenance of essential infrastructure, such as the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, where DUNE's far detector is housed. Support for the development of beamlines at Fermilab in Illinois, where the neutrino beam originates.
Published Papers:
- DUNE Collaboration. (2020). Long-baseline neutrino oscillation physics potential of the DUNE experiment: DUNE Collaboration. EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C. 10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-08456-z.
- DUNE Collaboration. (2020). First results on ProtoDUNE-SP liquid argon time projection chamber performance from a beam test at the CERN Neutrino Platform. JOURNAL OF INSTRUMENTATION. 10.1088/1748-0221/15/12/P12004.
CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Project: Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Description: The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 – one of the original goals of the LHC – is one of the most important particle physics discoveries of the last 50 years. Now the scientific focus has shifted to understanding the detailed properties of the Higgs boson and other known processes to elucidate possible deviations from current theory—deviations that might indicate new phenomena. This search for new phenomena motivates the High Luminosity (HL) upgrades to the LHC and its detectors, which will increase the proton collision rater, resulting in a much larger data sample. As part of a global effort, NSF is supporting upgrades to two LHC detectors to enable collection and analysis of the HL-LHC data.
Published Papers:
- G. Aad, T. Abajyan et al., (2012). Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. PHYSICS LETTERS B. 10.1016/j.physletb.2012.08.020.
