NSF 24-573: Focused EPSCoR Collaborations Program (FEC)

NSF 24-573: Focused EPSCoR Collaborations Program (FEC)

The NSF EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (FEC) is a recurring federal opportunity for organizations in EPSCoR-eligible regions to submit inter-jurisdictional research infrastructure proposals across STEM fields. The official program page lists it as an active program with recurring deadlines, and the latest upcoming full proposal deadline shown is 26 January 2027.

Unlike many single-cycle opportunities, this one is designed as part of an ongoing competition model. The solicitation in NSF’s catalog is the current version under solicitation number 24-573, while the program page presents an updated annual schedule that includes:

• letter of intent due date: 15 December 2026, and
• full proposal deadline: 26 January 2027.

This guide is for teams building a bid in the 2026/2027 cycle, including universities, research organizations, and supporting partners in EPSCoR jurisdictions.

Key details

What this opportunity actually supports

This program is explicitly about improving research capacity, infrastructure, and competitiveness in U.S. jurisdictions that qualify under EPSCoR. The page describes it as a mechanism for interjurisdictional teams of EPSCoR investigators to work on research topics aligned with NSF priorities and with goals tied to discovery plus sustainable STEM capacity building.

The design is important: it is less a standard “single-lab proposal” and more a collaboration architecture. The solicitation asks for teams that can only be stronger together than the individual parts. In practical terms, that means teams that can show:

• complementary capabilities across states or territories,
• a jointly defined plan that no one partner could realistically execute alone,
• and an institutional plan for workforce outcomes, not just technical outputs.

The stated audience is broad—researchers and jurisdictions from multiple domains in STEM—because EPSCoR is structured to build long-term regional capacity. The official text highlights science and education activities alongside research outcomes, and gives explicit emphasis to broadening participation through institutional and geographic diversity.

For applicants, this matters because the opportunity is not only about laboratory outputs. It also evaluates whether a consortium can produce practical, durable capability. That includes measurable workforce effects and a realistic management structure.

Who this is for and who should avoid it

Good fit if you:

• lead or host research projects in an EPSCoR-eligible jurisdiction,
• can demonstrate collaboration with at least one additional EPSCoR jurisdiction,
• have principal investigators across jurisdictions that are already coordinating on a coherent theme,
• can carry a proposal and award administration across a longer timeline,
• and can justify workforce outcomes (faculty development, training, and retention pathways) as part of scientific implementation.

Not a fit if you:

• are outside EPSCoR eligibility and not in an eligible organizational configuration,
• already have only one institution applying without a cross-jurisdictional plan,
• are trying to submit a portfolio of disconnected subprojects rather than a single coordinated effort,
• or cannot provide the required documentation and institutional coordination at the proposal stage.

This is also not a simple “funding-now, fill-form-later” route. The solicitation repeatedly requires active collaboration, defined partner roles, and clear management design. If your consortium cannot explain who does what for what deliverable and for what year, the proposal will fail review on clarity alone.

Eligibility requirements that decide pass/fail early

The program page and solicitation confirm several hard constraints:

• eligibility is limited to entities with EPSCoR status criteria,
• projects must include researchers from at least two EPSCoR jurisdictions,
• each participating jurisdiction should be represented by an eligible PI or co-PI,
• a PI from an investigator currently holding a current FEC award may face participation restrictions,
• each organization may submit only one proposal as lead,
• one investigator can be PI or co-PI on only one FEC award at a time.

The solicitation adds concrete lead eligibility categories for organizations. Confirmed submitter categories include:

1. institutions of higher education in the United States, its territories, or possessions,
2. certain non-profit, non-degree-granting U.S. research organizations and science-linked organizations,
3. and some tribal government structures under recognized frameworks.

Applicants must also be careful about collaborator structure: proposals can be formed either as one lead with subawards or as a multiple-organization collaborative proposal. In either design, every lead submission has to document participating jurisdictions, roles, and deliverables.

One critical compliance point: this is not a soft preference. For non-lead-subaward models, the requirement can include a minimum collaborator structure with PI/co-PI representation across jurisdictions. You should treat this as non-negotiable design architecture before any content writing starts.

How the review model and application schedule works

Published dates and cycle design

The solicitation shows historical and recurring dates, while the program page gives a live cycle:

• Letter of intent required: 15 December 2026,
• Full proposal deadline: 26 January 2027,
• all by 5:00 p.m. local organization time.

The solicitation’s historical sequence confirms this is an annual pattern, with prior Jan 2025 and Jan 2026 deadlines and future yearly recurrence. If you are planning for 2027, assume the cycle continues under this pattern unless NSF updates the page.

Why it is competitive

Even with multiple rounds and recurring deadlines, this remains grant-like competition. NSF expects complete packages and does not offer “informal” acceptance based on a promising idea alone. The total program budget is fixed across multiple awards, not guaranteed per proposal. That means even high-quality proposals can be unsuccessful if quality is too close across the portfolio and funding is constrained.

Practical implication: reviewers and program staff will reward proposals that are both conceptually strong and administratively ready. The difference often sits in execution design: timeline realism, role clarity, and quantifiable outputs.

Application process and required materials (with official flow)

The process starts with a required Letter of Intent (LOI) submitted by the Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR). The official instructions are explicit: proposals without an LOI from the AOR can be returned without review.

For LOI and proposal submission, NSF requires:

• AOR-submitted LOI with “Synopsis” and “Other Comments” fields,
• research keywords entered in the LOI,
• no duplicate LOIs,
• and submission through Research.gov.

After LOI, full proposal preparation can be submitted through Research.gov or Grants.gov.

LOI preparation essentials

• keep it focused on scope, research topic, and participating jurisdictions,
• identify participating institutions and PI/collaborator locations,
• avoid overloading narrative with unrelated team achievements.

Even official text for the LOI notes that LOIs are for preparation and not for reviewer grading on full history. So an LOI that is precise and jurisdiction-specific is more useful than a broad institutional showcase.

Proposal preparation essentials

The solicitation’s “How to apply” section points to NSF PAPPG rules as the baseline and then overlays FEC-specific requirements. At a minimum, your team should assemble:

• PI and co-PI structure with jurisdiction coverage,
• project plan across STEM scope areas aligned to declared focus,
• budget structure compliant with program ceilings (see below),
• a workforce development plan that includes early-career faculty support,
• evaluation and assessment plan including measurable outputs,
• management and administration plan for multi-jurisdiction execution,
• and supporting supplementary documents (participant/organization lists and optional collaboration letters).

For teams new to NSF, using Research.gov grant preparation tools early (well ahead of the LOI window) avoids a common last-minute trap: systems errors that prevent submission close to deadline.

Funding and budget constraints that commonly trip teams up

The program page gives a broad estimated program budget; the solicitation gives the most concrete per-award cap mechanics. For a proposal:

• if two EPSCoR jurisdictions are in the collaboration, total funding can be up to $4 million for up to 4 years,
• if three or more jurisdictions collaborate, total funding can be up to $6 million for up to 4 years.

The program is a program with variable award values, not a fixed amount. This makes budget narrative design crucial. You need to build a budget that proves feasibility rather than simply scales ambition.

Two critical budget guardrails from the solicitation:

1. Voluntary committed cost-sharing is prohibited.
2. Subawards and subaward budgets have compliance rules; non-EPSCoR subawards are not allowed.

These are easy to miss because teams often draft generic NSF budgets and then discover that an item conflicts with program-specific restrictions. Keep every budget line tied to program goals:

• project duration,
• work sharing across jurisdictions,
• workforce development,
• dissemination and outcomes assessment,
• travel and meetings linked to program participation,
• and evaluator support as required.

The page also lists expected budget uses tied to EPSCoR operations: meetings, workshops, and conferences are expected where relevant.

Project design expectations beyond the abstract

1) Collaboration design is the proposal’s backbone

Each part of the consortium must do work that is non-redundant. If three institutions all propose to do “the same experiments and the same outreach,” reviewers will treat the plan as weakly differentiated. The strongest teams define complementary pathways:

• one partner contributes a facility or access component,
• one contributes core scientific method,
• one contributes workforce or training infrastructure,
• and all three provide aligned milestones.

The solicitation language repeatedly emphasizes integrated, multi-jurisdiction planning and a realistic roadmap to impact. That is difficult to fake. Build your logic model around a “before/after” structure:

• baseline capability,
• midpoint milestones,
• final deliverables that change capacity.

2) Workforce development is not optional

The solicitation explicitly requires workforce development integrated with research and education components. Include explicit plans for mentoring and recruiting early-career faculty and trainees. If this section is thin, teams often score well on technical ambition but lose because expected ecosystem impact is not justified.

3) Evaluation is not a final appendix

You must specify an evaluation framework with measurable indicators and milestones. Proposals are expected to include independent external evaluation and output metrics. This should not be an afterthought: it is part of the project architecture.

4) Management and administration is as important as science

A multi-institution proposal across states will likely fail on execution clarity first. Include team governance, communication cadence, data sharing processes, and responsibility matrix. Keep reporting flows and role ownership explicit for every jurisdiction.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

1. Submitting without clear jurisdiction representation
   • If jurisdiction coverage is unclear in LOI and proposal documents, the submission can be rejected early.
2. Ignoring the single-proposal-per-org lead rule
   • Organizations should map internal project portfolios before deciding lead/subaward roles.
3. Budget violations
   • Voluntary cost sharing in ways that conflict with program restrictions, or including non-eligible subawards.
4. Late systems readiness
   • Not testing Research.gov/Grants.gov submission path before deadline.
5. Overcomplicated project narratives
   • Too much prose and too little measurable implementation.
6. Weak workforce/evaluation sections
   • This opportunity explicitly expects both training outcomes and evaluation strategy.
7. Not reading the updated program page
   • The cycle information shown in the current program page matters. For 2027, use the date shown there.

Teams that win this competition usually do so by combining technical ambition with operational discipline. If a reviewer asks whether you can actually execute across jurisdictions and produce outputs across the lifecycle, your answer should be easy to extract from the proposal.

Practical preparation checklist (2026–2027)

• Now: confirm EPSCoR eligibility for each participating organization and finalize partners.
• 2–3 months before LOI: draft shared concept with each PI’s deliverable map and jurisdiction role.
• LOI phase: keep wording concise, identify jurisdictions, and include research keywords.
• Post-LOI: build a full 4-year delivery architecture and budget in parallel, and check all budget ceilings.
• Before full submission: validate submission path (Research.gov or Grants.gov), then run a compliance dry run.
• In final week: remove vague claims, tighten milestones, and ensure the evaluator plan is measurable.

Remember the submission rule: AOR responsibility is central. Every required step is institutionally managed. Make sure your AOR has a complete package before finalization.

FAQ

Is this a grant, and who receives the funds?

It is listed as an NSF cooperative agreement style funding opportunity. As with most NSF federal opportunities, the host organization is the applicant entity and proposals run through institutional channels.

Does every EPSCoR participant in the U.S. automatically qualify?

No. EPSCoR eligibility is the governing filter and should be checked per NSF’s official EPSCoR criteria before submission.

What is required before full proposal submission?

A required Letter of Intent is required. The solicitation states proposals without required LOI compliance are at risk of being returned without review.

Can only two institutions apply?

The program is designed for interjurisdictional teams and explicitly supports multi-jurisdiction collaboration. Two is the minimum, three or more increases the possible award ceiling.

What is the funding amount per award?

The page confirms estimated program amount and likely award count; the solicitation provides cap behavior tied to number of jurisdictions: typically up to $4M for two jurisdictions and up to $6M for three or more.

Are costs fixed by NSF?

No. Proposed awards are constrained by ceilings and review quality, and available budgets can change by policy and portfolio decisions.

Is this still useful for 2027 if published earlier?

Yes. The page and solicitation indicate a recurring annual structure and list active future cycle dates, so teams should plan for the current cycle listed on the program page.

Official links and next steps

• Official program page: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/epscor-research-infrastructure-improvement-program-focused
• Official solicitation (NSF 24-573): https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/epscor-research-infrastructure-improvement-program-focused/nsf24-573/solicitation
• Program contacts: [email protected] and NSF EPSCoR program communications listed on the page

Before final submission, validate that you are using the most current program page information and that your institution’s AOR is ready to submit by the LOI and full proposal cutoff windows.