National Science Foundation Contract Opportunities

What NSF buys

NSF pain points

What NSF is actively trying to fix — sourced from agency strategic plans, IG reports, and FY26 budget justifications. Map your capabilities to these and you're writing toward an evaluator's actual problem.

• 1

  Research grant management - modernizing systems processing 40,000+ proposals and $9B+ annually

• 2

  Merit review modernization - improving peer review workflows for 250,000+ reviewer assignments

• 3

  Research infrastructure investment - Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction portfolio

• 4

  Cybersecurity for research data - protecting intellectual property and sensitive research outputs

• 5

  Cloud computing for research - enabling large-scale scientific computing and AI workloads

• 6

  Data management and sharing - implementing OSTP public access policies for federally funded research

FY26 funding priorities

Where the money is moving inside NSF in the current and upcoming fiscal years.

• $9.5B allocated for NSF's FY2025 budget, with $1.2B specifically for the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) to fund AI and quantum computing research grants for industry-academia collaborations.
• $500M committed to the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program, with awards up to $160M per engine over 10 years for tech hubs—proposals open to contractors supporting innovation ecosystems through FY2026.
• $1.6B budgeted for NSF's STEM Education programs in FY2025, including contracts for curriculum development and training solutions to support underrepresented groups in STEM fields.
• $300M allocated for the NSF Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) program, funding software and data tools development with solicitations expected in FY2025 for IT contractors.
• $200M for the NSF Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program in FY2025, supporting cybersecurity research and prototype development with grant opportunities for tech firms.