NASA To Expand Cutting-Edge Science At Emerging Research Institutions

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is announcing two major initiatives to support, enhance, and enable cutting-edge science at emerging research institutions. The initiatives – NASA’s Research Initiation Awards and the NASA SMD Bridge Seed Funding Program – are responsive to NASA’s 2022 Equity Action Plan to advance opportunities, access, and representation for US institutions that have not historically been part of the NASA science research enterprise.

Such institutions – which include primarily undergraduate institutions, community colleges, minority-serving institutions, such as historically black colleges and universities, hispanic serving institutions, and tribal colleges and universities, – enroll approximately 75 percent of undergraduate students across the United States yet have relatively little participation in NASA-sponsored research. Partnering with these institutions is therefore critical to building a more robust and innovative research base across the country.

“These initiatives will provide an on-ramp for emerging research institutions to the vast constellation of NASA science,” said Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for Science. “At NASA, there is space for everyone, and it starts with making research opportunities more open for all.”

The Research Initiation Awards program aims to broaden the base of investigators involved in NASA’s Science ecosystem. The program enables investigators at emerging research institutions to initiate activities to provide catalyzing funding support for a competitive, sustainable and productive research program. It will also make it possible for undergraduate students affiliated with the successful teams to perform cutting-edge research. NASA expects to award approximately one to two million dollars per year as part of this initiative.

NASA’s Bridge Seed Funding program is designed to enable new partnerships between emerging research institutions and NASA Centers and Facilities. In so doing, the Bridge Seed Funding program aims to boost research capacity across a broader range of institutions, and to forge enduring collaborations between these institutions and NASA. NASA expects to award up to four million dollars per year to successful NASA Bridge Seed Funding teams.

“NASA understands that innovation and discovery are accelerated by the involvement of a diverse and inclusive team of researchers from across the Nation. These initiatives are first steps to broadening the community of NASA researchers to address some of the most profound questions in science,” said Michael New, Science Mission Directorate deputy associate administrator for research at NASA headquarters. “I am excited to see the proposals that are submitted for both initiatives.”

The ROSES solicitations for the Research Initiation Awards and Bridge Seed Funding Program open Tuesday, April 18. Interested proposers can register at this link for an information webinar, Wednesday, May 24 at 1:00 pm -2:30 pm ET.

News Media Contact

Katherine Rohloff
NASA Headquarters, Washingtonkatherine.a.rohloff@nasa.gov