· a tenured or tenure-track position, or
· a primary, full-time, paid appointment in a research or teaching position, or
· a staff leadership role in an Open-Source Program Office or equivalent position at a U.S.-based campus of an Institution of Higher Education (see above), with exceptions granted for family or medical leave, as determined by the submitting organization. Individuals withprimaryappointments at overseas branch campuses of U.S. institutions of higher education are not eligible. Researchers from foreign academic institutions who contribute essential expertise to the project may participate as Senior/Key Personnel or collaborators but may not receive NSF support. Individuals withprimaryappointments at non-U.S. based non-profit or non-U.S. based for-profit organizations are not eligible. For all other eligible proposing organizations: The PI must be an employee of the proposing organization who is normally resident in the U.S. and must be acting as an employee of the proposing organization while performing PI responsibilities. The PI may perform the PI responsibilities while temporarily out of the U.S. ## What the grant funds The Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program aims to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. Many NSF-funded projects result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open-source products, including software, hardware, models, specifications, programming languages, or data platforms that catalyze further innovation. In some cases, an open-source product that shows potential for wide adoption forms the basis for a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem (OSE) that comprises a leadership team; a managing organization with a well-defined governance structure and distributed development model; a cohesive community of external intellectual content developers; and a broad base of users across academia, industry, and/or government. The overarching vision of POSE is that proactive and intentional formation of managing organizations will ensure adoption of open-source products; increased coordination of external intellectual content developer contributions; and a more focused route to technologies with broad societal impact. Toward this end, the POSE program supports the formation of new OSE managing organizations based on anexisting open-source product or class of products, whereby each organization is responsible for the creation and management of processes and infrastructure needed for the efficient and secure development and maintenance of an OSE. POSE constitutes a new pathway to translate scientific innovations, akin to the Lab-to-Market Platform that NSF has pioneered over many decades. Whereas programs like theNSF Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps™)andAmerica’s Seed Fund[Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)]represent an integrated set of programs to provide researchers with the capacity to transform their fundamental research into deep technology ventures, POSE is specifically focused on another translational pathway – supporting the transition from open-source research artifacts to OSEs. Importantly, the POSE program isnotintended to fund thedevelopmentof open-source products, including tools and artifacts. The POSE program is alsonotintended to fund existing well-resourced, open-source communities or ecosystems. Instead, the program aims to supportnewmanaging organizations to catalyze distributed, community-driven development and growth ofnewOSEs. ## Questions people ask ### Is NSF 24-606 still open? No. It is no longer open on Grants.gov. ### Who can apply for Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems? U.S. National Science Foundation accepted applications from the applicants described in the notice. The notice adds further conditions, so read its eligibility section. ### What is the deadline for Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems? Closed. Applications are no longer accepted; the program's newer notices are on this page when there are any. ### How much funding is available? Awards of up to $1.5 million each. About $27.8 million in total across about 50 awards. ### Who has won Engineering grants before? The largest recipients over five fiscal years were Georgia Tech Research Corp, Purdue University, Regents of the University of Michigan. The program made 11,244 awards worth $4.3 billion in that time.