[National Science Foundation (NSF)](https://www.nsf.gov)

April 2, 2025 | January 21, 2026 | Third Wednesday in January, Annually Thereafter

Total program funding $8M–$12M; individual awards up to $600K–$1.2M for up to 3 years depending on program area

Supports research to enhance cybersecurity and privacy of scientific cyberinfrastructure, focusing on usability, data integrity, resilience, and AI data authenticity.

--- ## Description The Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program by NSF aims to advance scientific discovery by improving the security, privacy, and usability of cyberinfrastructure (CI) that supports scientific research. It addresses the unique challenges of modern scientific CI, which is complex, data-driven, distributed, and collaborative, by funding applied cybersecurity research that benefits the broader scientific community. CICI targets four specific program areas: 1. **Usable and Collaborative Security for Science (UCSS):** Research that enhances security usability and collaboration in scientific workflows, encouraging adoption of security practices by domain scientists and fostering integrated security environments across scientific CI ecosystems. This includes support for Security Operation Centers (SOCs) at various scales, especially for under-resourced institutions. 2. **Reference Scientific Security Datasets (RSSD):** Development and public sharing of curated, high-fidelity datasets capturing metadata from scientific workflows and workloads. These datasets support reproducible security research, testing, and evaluation, adhering to FAIR principles for data management. 3. **Transition to Cyberinfrastructure Resilience (TCR):** Efforts to improve the robustness, trustworthiness, and resilience of scientific CI through deployment, testing, evaluation, and transition of novel cybersecurity research. This includes enhancing reproducibility in CI, workflows, and data, and encourages leveraging existing CI facilities and testbeds. 4. **Integrity, Provenance, and Authenticity for Artificial Intelligence Ready Data (IPAAI):** Research to improve confidence and reproducibility in AI-driven scientific results by ensuring the integrity, provenance, and authenticity of datasets used by AI systems. This area addresses challenges in detecting and mitigating compromised or inaccurate data in AI models. All proposals must clearly demonstrate how their work benefits scientific infrastructure and users, address unique scientific domain security needs, and include sustainability and ethical considerations. NSF encourages open-source software release, collaboration with domain scientists and IT experts, and plans for quantitative assessment of security benefits. ## Due Dates - April 2, 2025 (Full Proposal Deadline) - January 21, 2026 (Full Proposal Deadline) - Third Wednesday in January, Annually Thereafter (Full Proposal Deadline) Proposals are due by 5 p.m. local time of the submitting organization. ## Funding Amount - Total program funding: $8,000,000 to $12,000,000 (subject to availability) - Estimated number of awards: 12 to 20 - Award sizes and durations by program area: - UCSS: up to $600,000 total for up to 3 years - RSSD: up to $600,000 total for up to 3 years - TCR: up to $1,200,000 total for up to 3 years - IPAAI: up to $900,000 total for up to 3 years ## Eligibility - **Who May Submit:** - U.S.-based Institutions of Higher Education (two- and four-year, including community colleges) accredited and with a U.S. campus. - U.S.-based non-profit, non-academic organizations directly associated with educational or research activities (e.g., museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies). - **PI Eligibility:** No restrictions on who may serve as Principal Investigator. - **Proposal Limits:** - No limit on number of proposals per organization. - Individuals may participate as PI, co-PI, or senior/key personnel on no more than two CICI proposals; proposals exceeding this will be returned without review. - Collaborative proposals must be submitted as a single proposal with one award; separate awards for multiple organizations are not allowed. ## Application Process - Proposals must be submitted via Research.gov or Grants.gov following the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG). - Proposal titles must begin with "CICI:" followed by the program area acronym (UCSS, RSSD, TCR, or IPAAI) and then the project title (e.g., CICI:UCSS:Your Project Title). - Letters of Intent and preliminary proposals are not required. - Budgets should include travel funds for annual PI meetings. - Voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited. - All curated datasets must be publicly shared through established community platforms and comply with FAIR data principles. - Supplementary documents may include lists of personnel and letters of collaboration. ## Additional Information - The program emphasizes broadening participation in STEM, encouraging proposals led by or involving underrepresented groups and institutions such as HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs, HSIs, and community colleges. - Proposals should address the unique security requirements of scientific cyberinfrastructure and demonstrate potential for sustained impact beyond the award period. - Ethical considerations, including privacy protection and informed consent for testing on cyberinfrastructure, must be addressed. - The program complements other NSF cyberinfrastructure programs but is not intended for fundamental cybersecurity research or non-cybersecurity infrastructure efforts. ## External Links - [Program Solicitation and Details (NSF CICI)](https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/cici-cybersecurity-innovation-cyberinfrastructure/nsf25-531/solicitation) - [NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG)](https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=pappg) - [FAIR Data Principles](https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/) - [Open Science Risk Profile (OSRP)](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8055662/) - [NSF Broadening Participation in STEM](https://www.nsf.gov/od/broadeningparticipation/bp_portfolio_dynamic.jsp) ## Contact Information | Contact Person | Role | Phone | Email | |------------------------|-------------------------------|---------------|------------------------| | Daniel F. Massey | Program Officer | (703) 292-5147 | [dmassey@nsf.gov](mailto:dmassey@nsf.gov) | | Kevin Thompson | Program Director, CISE/OAC | (703) 292-4220 | [kthompso@nsf.gov](mailto:kthompso@nsf.gov) | | NSF Help Desk | Technical Support (Research.gov) | 1-800-381-1532 | [rgov@nsf.gov](mailto:rgov@nsf.gov) | | Grants.gov Contact Center | Technical Support (Grants.gov) | 1-800-518-4726 | [support@grants.gov](mailto:support@grants.gov) | --- This funding opportunity is ideal for researchers focused on applied cybersecurity solutions that enhance the security, usability, and trustworthiness of scientific cyberinfrastructure, especially those working at the intersection of cybersecurity and scientific data workflows, AI data integrity, and collaborative scientific environments.

Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure

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