Funder: National Science Foundation
Due Dates: September 2, 2025 (Phase I & II) | January 13, 2026 (Phase I) | September 1, 2026 (Phase I & II) | Annually thereafter
Funding Amounts: Phase I: up to $300,000 (1 year) | Phase II: up to $1,500,000 (2 years) | ~30–50 awards total
Summary: Supports the formation of new managing organizations to build sustainable open-source ecosystems around existing open-source products addressing societal or national needs.
Key Information: Does not fund new open-source product development or existing well-resourced ecosystems; proposals must focus on ecosystem-building for already-developed open-source products.
Description
The National Science Foundation's Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program funds the creation and growth of sustainable, high-impact open-source ecosystems (OSEs) around existing open-source products. The program aims to translate research innovations into broad societal impact by supporting the formation of new managing organizations that coordinate distributed, community-driven development and adoption of open-source technologies.
POSE is not intended to fund the development of new open-source products or to support existing, well-resourced open-source communities. Instead, it targets the transition of promising, already-developed open-source products into robust ecosystems with broad user and contributor bases across academia, industry, government, and other sectors.
The program offers two tracks:
- Phase I: Scoping and planning activities for teams with open-source products that have a small community of external users (but not necessarily external developers).
- Phase II: Establishment and expansion of a sustainable OSE for products with existing communities of both external users and developers.
Due Dates
- September 2, 2025: Phase I and Phase II proposals
- January 13, 2026: Phase I proposals (second Tuesday in January, annually thereafter)
- September 1, 2026: Phase I and Phase II proposals (first Tuesday in September, annually thereafter)
- Annually thereafter: Same schedule
All proposals are due by 5:00 p.m. local time of the submitting organization.
Funding Amount
- Phase I: Up to $300,000 per award, for up to 1 year (approx. 20 awards anticipated)
- Phase II: Up to $1,500,000 per award, for up to 2 years (approx. 10 awards anticipated)
- Total program funding: ~$27.8 million
- No cost sharing required
- No equipment funding in Phase I; allowed in Phase II
Eligibility
Eligible Applicants:
- U.S.-based institutions of higher education (2- and 4-year, including community colleges)
- U.S.-based non-profit, non-academic organizations (e.g., museums, research labs, professional societies)
- U.S.-based for-profit organizations (including small businesses) with strong research or education capabilities
- State and local governments
- Federally recognized Tribal Nations
Principal Investigator (PI) Requirements:
- For IHEs: PI/co-PI/Senior Personnel must hold a tenured/tenure-track position, a primary full-time paid research/teaching appointment, or a staff leadership role in an Open-Source Program Office at a U.S. campus.
- For other organizations: PI must be an employee, normally resident in the U.S., acting as an employee while performing PI duties.
- Individuals with primary appointments at non-U.S. organizations or overseas branches are not eligible.
Additional Notes:
- No limits on the number of proposals per organization or per PI/co-PI.
- Proposals must be submitted by a single lead organization; multi-organization teams must use sub-awards (not separate collaborative proposals).
- Non-profit and for-profit organizations must be U.S.-owned and controlled.
Application Process
- Submission Platforms: Research.gov or Grants.gov
- Letters of Intent/Preliminary Proposals: Not required
- Full Proposal: Required; must follow the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) and solicitation-specific requirements
- Key Proposal Elements:
- Project Summary (with required keywords)
- Project Description (7 pages for Phase I, 15 pages for Phase II), including:
- "Context of OSE" section
- Risk analysis/security plan
- Community outreach and evaluation plans
- Pointer to the existing open-source product
- Budget and justification (with strict caps)
- Supplementary documents:
- 3–5 letters of collaboration from third-party users/contributors
- List of project personnel, collaborators, and partner organizations
- Data Management and Sharing Plan
Mandatory Training: Awarded teams must participate in OSE training (I-Corps for POSE), budgeting for at least three and up to five team members (including an external mentor).
Additional Information
- Review Criteria: Standard NSF intellectual merit and broader impacts, plus solicitation-specific criteria focused on ecosystem viability, community-building, sustainability, and societal impact.
- Restrictions:
- No funding for new open-source product development or for existing, well-resourced open-source communities.
- Proposals must focus on building/managing ecosystems around already-developed, publicly accessible open-source products.
- Letters of Collaboration: Required from current users/contributors not directly related to the proposing team.
- No cost sharing or matching required.
- No equipment funding in Phase I.
External Links
Contact Information
For technical support:
- Research.gov Help Desk: 1-800-381-1532, rgov@nsf.gov
- Grants.gov Contact Center: 1-800-518-4726, support@grants.gov
For general NSF inquiries: