Grants / National Science Foundation / U.S. National Science Foundation

NSF 25-521: Materials Innovation Platforms (MIP)

Closed Closed Opportunity NSF 25-521 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: Major Research Instrumentation Program: (MRI) (NSF 27-500). Status: Closes January 29, 2027 (83 days left). It is in our archive of U.S. National Science Foundation notices from 2026.

• Award ceiling$30.0 million
• Award floor$18.0 million
• Total funding$16.0 million
• Expected awards3
• Cost sharingNot required
• Funding typeCooperative Agreement

Key dates

Who can apply

This opportunity was open to the applicants described in the notice.

• Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)

*Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: -Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) accredited in, and having a campus located in the U.S., acting on behalf of their faculty members. *Who May Serve as PI: Each proposed project must be directed by a team of at least three Senior/Key Personnel with complementary expertise on materials synthesis/processing, characterization, theory/modeling/simulation, etc.

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past Mathematical and Physical Sciences awards averaged $568,976; this notice allows up to $30.0 million per award.
• Most of the program's money (80% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

Materials Innovation Platforms (MIP) is a mid-scale infrastructure program in the Division of Materials Research (DMR) designed to accelerate advances in materials research. MIPs respond to the increasing complexity of materials research that requires close collaboration of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams and access to cutting edge tools. These tools in a user facility benefit both a user program and in-house research, which focus on addressing grand challenges of fundamental science and meet national needs. MIPs embrace the paradigm set forth by the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), which strives to “discover, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials twice as fast, at a fraction of the cost,” and conduct research through iterative “closed-loop” efforts among the areas of materials synthesis/processing, materials characterization, and theory/modeling/simulation. In addition, they are expected to engage the emerging field of data science in materials research. Each MIP is a scientific ecosystem, which includes in-house research scientists, external users and other scientists who, collectively, form a community of practitioners and share tools, codes, samples, data and know-how. The knowledge sharing is designed to strengthen collaborations among scientists and enable them to work in new ways, fostering new modalities of research and training, for the purpose of accelerating discovery and development of new materials and novel materials phenomena/properties, as well as fostering their eventual deployment. The scientific focus of the MIP program is subject to change from competition to competition. Information about the existing MIPs, from two previous competitions in 2015 and 2019, can be found at mip.org. The third MIP competition, in 2025, will accept proposals on alloys, amorphous, and composite materials. Given that the second MIP competition included an emphasis on biomaterials and polymer research, proposals mainly on these topics will not be considered in the third MIP competition.

Category: Science and Technology and other Research and Development.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, NSF 27-500, which is open now.

The notice on Grants.gov keeps its full text and attachments, which is useful for planning a resubmission.