Stanford Research Development Office

NSF Regional Innovation Engines

Most recent content update: November 10, 2025

Note: This page will be updated as new information is available. Please check back frequently. 

Program Snapshot

The NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) initiative was launched by the new NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) to expand the United States' innovation capacity by leveraging the resources, creativity, and ingenuity that exist across all geographic regions of the country.

NSF Engines is a unique type of opportunity in that it has broader scope, greater translational opportunities, award size, and duration.

The NSF Engines program catalyzes and fosters innovation ecosystems across the U.S. to:

  • Advance critical technologies
  • Address national and societal challenges
  • Foster partnerships across industry, academia, government, nonprofits, civil society, and communities of practice
  • Promote and stimulate economic growth and job creation
  • Spur regional innovation and talent

NSF will fund Engines to carry out an integrated and comprehensive set of activities spanning use-inspired research, translation-to-practice, entrepreneurship, and workforce development to nurture and accelerate regional industries. Engines must also work to bring together an inclusive and diverse network of partners and stakeholders who will participate in the regional innovation ecosystem. In contrast to many existing NSF programs that primarily focus on scientific innovation, NSF Engines will emphasize research that meaningfully engages the consumers of research outcomes in motivating that research as well as in the subsequent prototyping and piloting of research-based solutions (i.e., co-design and co-creation), the translation of research results to practice, entrepreneurship, and direct economic growth. The program further differentiates itself from traditional NSF approaches through the nature and types of partnerships expected; the technology-translation and workforce-development outputs to be tracked and assessed; the level of post-award oversight; the budgets, which are an order of magnitude greater than traditional NSF center-scale awards; and the duration of NSF funding paired with an intentional focus on long-term sustainability.

The NSF Engines program harnesses the nation’s science and technology research and development enterprise and regional-level resources. NSF Engines can catalyze robust partnerships rooted in scientific and technological innovation to positively impact the economy within a geographic region, address societal challenges, and advance national competitiveness.

In the first two rounds, the NSF Engines program  solicited two different types of proposals:

Type-1 awards are development awards intended to enable awardees to lay the groundwork for submitting a successful Type-2 proposal to launch a full scale NSF Engine. Type-1 awardees will need to re-apply independently for a Type-2 award. Receiving a Type-1 award is not a pre-requisite for applying to a Type-2 award. Type-1 awards are up to $1 million over two years. 

Type-2 awards are for proposers who can demonstrably claim that their proposed Engine’s region of service is at a maturity level corresponding to either the Nascent or Emergent Phase of an NSF Engine (See pg 16, section F of BAA). Type-2 awards are up to $160 million over a period of up to 10 years. Significant additional resources/contributions from other sources are expected. NSF expects to fund only one Type-2 award per region.

Timeline 

  • Waiting for new solicitation

Eligibility

  • NSF limits the number of proposals submitted by each organization to one (further details in the Limited Submissions Process section below).
  • Faculty with PI eligibility (members of the University's Academic Council or UML faculty) are permitted to serve as PI/PD.
  • Project Directors of Type-2 awards are expected to commit full time to leading their NSF Engine. An interim PD is allowed at the time of proposal submission if PD/CEO is named/recruited within 6 months of award start. Similar requirements do not apply for Type-1 proposals, other senior personnel, or subawardees.

Limited Submissions Process

This is a Limited Submission funding opportunity. A university-wide selection process is required prior to proposal submission to NSF. No more than one proposal is permitted from Stanford as the lead institution. Applicants will need both NSF approval and Stanford approval of their Concept Outline before being allowed to submit their LOI or full proposal. To reduce burden on proposers, the internal competition matches NSF in requirements and timing.

Find more information on the selection process and submit internal applications via the NSF Engines Competition Page available on the Limited Submissions portal page.

For questions about the limited submissions process, please email limitedsubmissions@stanford.edu.

Resources

Program Information from NSF

Program Webinars

During each webinar, attendees will learn about the NSF Engines program model, including program goals, phases of Engine development, proposal and award requirements, and award types.

  • NSF hosted an introductory webinar on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Recording is available here.
  • Additional Q&A webinars were held ahead of the 2024 program round and can be found in the Program Events section here.

Regional Roadshows

Each NSF Engines roadshow was a regionally focused virtual event that included an overview of the program, a panel discussion with leading innovation and technology ecosystem builders from across the country, and interactive breakout rooms to collaborate with others from the region.

The roadshow for the region including California took place June 7, 2022 from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Pacific time. A recording of the panel discussion will be made available on the NSF TIP YouTube channel. RDO's notes from the northern California break out session are available upon request: email Stanford_RDO@stanford.edu.

Stanford support for proposals

The Stanford Research Development Office (RDO) provides proposal development support, including feedback and editing, for funding opportunities like this one. Please visit our home page or contact Kim Baeten to learn more.

Created: 05/09/22

Updated: 01/14/26