Partnership Opportunities in NSF ENG Programs

NSF ENG cultivates strategic partnerships between academia, industry, nonprofits, government, civil society and international organizations. These partnerships build U.S. research capacity, strengthen the nation's innovation ecosystem and explore solutions to pressing national and societal challenges.

ENG research centers and funding opportunities expand and strengthen industry-university partnerships that pursue potentially transformative engineering research. Explore industry partnership opportunities below.

• NSF Engineering Research Centers 
  Supports high-risk, high-payoff research focused on advancing engineered systems technology and education through multidisciplinary, cross-sector partnerships.
• Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) 
  Accelerates the knowledge transfer between industry and the academic community by facilitating research collaborations and fellowships.
• Industry–University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) 
  Catalyzes breakthrough pre-competitive research by enabling close and sustained engagement between industry innovators, world-class academic teams and government agencies.
• INTERN: Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students 
  Provides graduate students with experiential learning opportunities through research internships in industry, government labs or other nonacademic settings.

Through interagency agreements with NSF, ENG partners with several federal agencies. Explore the interagency programs below that support engineering research and education.

• Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
  NOTE: Proposals in these areas will be jointly reviewed by NSF and AFOSR using the NSF merit review process. The actual funding format and agency split for an award will be determined after proposal selection and will depend on the availability of funds. 
  
  ENG Transport Phenomena – fluid-structure interactions 
  Focuses on theory, modeling and/or experiments for hypersonic applications. AFOSR participates in this partnership through the AFOSR Aerothermodynamics program.
  
  ENG Transport Phenomena – turbulence-chemistry interactions 
  Supports fundamental understanding of turbulent flow interactions with finite-rate chemical kinetic pathways at high Reynolds and Karlovitz number conditions. AFOSR participates in this partnership through the AFOSR Energy, Combustion, and Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics program.
   
• U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
  NOTE: Proposals that are considered for co-funding by DOE will be shared with DOE staff to assess alignment with DOE's research interests, and the unattributed reviews and panel summaries for those proposals will also be shared with DOE.
  
  ENG Transport Phenomena – marine energy and hydropower
  Supports research on innovative energy technologies. DOE participates in this partnership through its Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office, which enables research, development, and testing of new technologies to advance marine energy and next-generation hydropower. 
  
  NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
  Provides engineering-related research opportunities for undergraduates at a host institution based in the U.S. or at a foreign location. REU Site proposals that are managed by ENG will be considered for DOE funding. Such proposals will involve DOE mission-relevant topics, which include, but are not limited to, electric power sector research; energy technology research; and risk science, decision science, social science and data science using power sector data sets. 
   
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  
  NSF-NIBIB Biomedical Research Initiative for Next-Gen BioTechnologies - SynBio Control (BRING SynBio)
  Supports projects aimed at advancing synthetic and engineering biology research and translating these findings into early-stage biomedical technologies through a collaboration between NSF and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB).

ENG participates in NSF agreements with France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and others, designed to reduce barriers to international research collaboration. The agreements are managed by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering (NSF OISE).

ENG partners with nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations. Explore the opportunities below that support engineering research and education.

• NSF-BioMADE: Opportunity for NSF Researchers to Participate in BioMADE Project Calls as Part of an Integrated Project Team
  Invites proposals that span from basic research to translation in collaboration with BioMADE and participating NSF programs in the directorates for Biological Sciences and Engineering in areas that will advance the U.S. bioeconomy.
• NSF-CASIS Transport Phenomena Research at the International Space Station to Benefit Life on Earth
  Supports research using the unique microgravity environment of the International Space Station to improve understanding and innovation in transport phenomena, nanoscale interactions and related manufacturing processes for benefiting life on Earth.
• NSF-Lemelson Initiative on Environmental and Social Sustainability in Engineering Education
  Invites proposals to the Research in the Formation of Engineers program on integrating sustainability, environmental and societal topics into engineering education.