The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Engineering (ENG) engages in partnerships to accelerate discovery and technological innovation in critical areas of science and engineering.
ENG cultivates strategic partnerships between academia, industry, nonprofits, government, civil society and other sectors to build U.S. research capacity, strengthen the nation's innovation ecosystem and explore solutions to pressing national and societal challenges.
This page highlights NSF programs that fund partnership opportunities that may interest to the engineering community, including industry, nonprofits and other organizations.
Visit the Partnering with NSF page to learn about working directly with NSF to invest in programs that support research and education.
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Industry-university partnerships
ENG research centers and funding opportunities expand and strengthen industry-university partnerships that pursue potentially transformative engineering research. Explore industry partnership opportunities below.
- Engineering Research Centers
Supports high-risk, high-payoff research focused on advancing engineered systems technology and education through multidisciplinary, cross-sector partnerships. - Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI)
Accelerates the knowledge transfer between industry and the academic community by facilitating research collaborations and fellowships. - Industry–University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC)
Catalyzes breakthrough pre-competitive research by enabling close and sustained engagement between industry innovators, world-class academic teams and government agencies. - NSF Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students (NSF INTERN)
Provides graduate students with experiential learning opportunities through research internships in industry, government labs or other non-academic settings.
NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP)
TIP ignites partnerships among academia, industry, government, nonprofits, civil society and communities of practice.
Visit TIPFederal partnerships
Through interagency agreements with NSF, ENG partners with several federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Explore the interagency programs below that support engineering research and education.
- Biomedical Research Initiative for Next-Gen BioTechnologies - SynBio Control (BRING SynBio)
Supports projects aimed at advancing synthetic and engineering biology research and translating these findings into early-stage biomedical technologies through an NSF-NIH collaboration. - Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF)
Supports the acceleration of materials design, discovery and development through the integration of experiments, computation and theory. Focus areas include unifying infrastructure; harnessing data; and educating, training and connecting the research and development workforce. - Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
Provides engineering-related research opportunities for undergraduates at a host institution based in the U.S. or at a foreign location. Explore NSF engineering REU sites.
International partnerships
ENG participates in NSF agreements with Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, the United Kingdom and others, designed to reduce barriers to international research collaboration.
Current international ENG partnership opportunities include:
Office of International Science and Engineering
The NSF Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) manages internationally focused programs and partnerships.
Learn MoreFor more information about engineering-related partnership opportunities, please contact ENG senior advisor Brandi Schottel.