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Dear Colleague Letter

Announcement of Important Updates to NSF Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Solicitation

Informs the research and innovation communities of important changes to the PFI solicitation. Changes have been made to the lineage requirement, the award amount and full proposal deadlines.
Informs the research and innovation communities of important changes to the PFI solicitation. Changes have been made to the lineage requirement, the award amount and full proposal deadlines.

Dear Colleague:

The Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Program within the Division of Translational Impacts (TI) in the NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) offers researchers from all disciplines of science and engineering funded by NSF the opportunity to perform translational research and technology development, catalyze partnerships, and accelerate the transition of discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace for societal benefit.

The purpose of this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) is to make the research and innovation community aware of important revisions in the PFI program recently announced in solicitation NSF 23-538, as outlined below.

NSF Lineage Requirement

NSF Innovation Corps (NSF I-CorpsTM) Teams awards no longer convey the lineage required to submit a PFI proposal.

All proposals submitted to the PFI program must meet a lineage requirement by having NSF-supported research results in any field of science and engineering: Principal Investigator (PI) or a co-PI must have had an NSF award that ended no more than seven (7) years prior to the full proposal deadline date or be a current NSF award recipient. The proposed technology development project must be derived from the research results and/or discoveries from this underlying NSF award.

Award Information

The funding amounts in both tracks of the PFI program have significantly increased. Specifically:

  • PFI-Technology Translation (PFI-TT) projects will be funded for up to $550,000 for 18-24 months per award; and

  • PFI-Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) projects will be funded for up to $1,000,000 for 36 months.

New Full Proposal Deadlines

The PFIsolicitation has three revised deadlines each year:

  • May 2, 2023
    First Tuesday in May, Annually Thereafter

  • September 5, 2023
    First Tuesday in September, Annually Thereafter

  • January 2, 2024
    First Tuesday in January, Annually Thereafter

All proposals are due by 5 p.m. submitter's local time on the above deadline dates.

Should you have questions about this DCL, please contact the PFI Program Officers at pfi@nsf.gov.

Sincerely,

Erwin Gianchandani
Assistant Director
Technology, Innovation and Partnerships
NSF

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