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U.S. National Science Foundation

Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)

Open

In short: U.S. National Science Foundation expects to make 20 awards of up to $1.2 million.

Key facts

Deadline
Due Jan 20, 2027 · 101 days left
Award size
Up to $1.2M
Total available
$12M · about 20 awards
Match ?
Not required · Work out your budget and match
Who can apply
Set by the official notice: see Who can apply below
Where
Anywhere in the U.S., including Tennessee

Before you apply: federal grants require an active SAM.gov registration (Unique Entity ID) and a Grants.gov account. Registration is free but can take weeks, so start now, not when the deadline is close. Get-ready checklist

How this fits you

  • Available in Shelby County (nationwide program)
  • No match required
  • Past Tennessee awards on file: 63, including your county

Tell us who you are to see whether you're eligible.

About this grant

The objective of the Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program is to advance scientific discovery and innovation by enhancing the security and privacy of cyberinfrastructure. CICI supports efforts to develop, deploy and integrate cybersecurity that will benefit the broader scientific community by securing science data, computation, collaborations workflows, and infrastructure. CICI recognizes the unique nature of modern, complex, data-driven, distributed, rapid, and collaborative science and the breadth of infrastructure and requirements across scientific disciplines, practitioners, researchers, and projects. CICI seeks proposals in four program areas: 1. Usable and Collaborative Security for Science (UCSS): Projects in this program area should support novel and/or applied security and usability research that facilitates scientific collaboration, encourages the adoption of security into the scientific workflow, and helps create a holistic, integrated security environment that spans the entire scientific cyberinfrastructure ecosystem. 2. Reference Scientific Security Datasets (RSSD): Projects in this program area should leverage instrumented cyberinfrastructure to capture metadata from scientific workflows and workloads as reference data artifacts that can help support reproducible security research, testing and evaluation. 3. Transition to Cyberinfrastructure Resilience (TCR): Projects in this program area should improve the robustness, trustworthiness, integrity, and/or resilience of scientific cyberinfrastructure through testing, evaluation, hardening, validation, and technology transition of novel cybersecurity research. The TCR area further encourages transition activities that advance the deployment and use of reproducibility in CI, workflows, and data. 4. Integrity, Provenance, and Authenticity for Artificial Intelligence Ready Data (IPAAI): Projects in this program area should enhance confidence and reproducibility in AI produced scientific results by improving the integrity, provenance, and authenticity of scientific datasets used by Artificial Intelligence systems.

Who can apply, from the official notice

*Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: -Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research laboratories, professional societies and similar organizations located in the U.S. that are directly associated with educational or research activities. -Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs): Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members. Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of sub-awards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

View on Grants.gov Add deadline to my calendar

Ask a partner for a letter

Your schedule, working back from the deadline

  1. Oct11
    Check that your SAM.gov registration is active (or start it now)
    Grants.gov: allow up to 10 business days for SAM registration, weeks or months if information isn't verified. It must be renewed every year. Grants.gov
  2. Dec30
    Ask partners for letters of support or commitment
    Suggested: partners need about three weeks to write and sign letters.
  3. Jan13
    Finish a complete draft for a final review
    Suggested: leave about a week for someone else to read the draft.
  4. Jan18
    Submit
    Grants.gov: submit at least 24–48 hours before the deadline: uploads fail, systems slow down, errors need fixing. Grants.gov blog
  5. Jan20
    Deadline
    From the funder.

Save this grant to put these dates in My grants and your private calendar.

Writing the need statement? Shelby County facts with citations.

Who in Tennessee has won this program

29 awards to Tennessee groups in 3 counties since 2019 · 2 in Shelby County. Largest shown:

Past Tennessee winners
Past winnerWhereAmountFiscal year
University of TennesseeKnoxville, Knox County$2.8M2022
University of TennesseeKnoxville, Knox County$2M2024
State of TennesseeNashville$1.9M spent that year2025
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville$1.9M spent that year2025
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson County$925K2024
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson County$673K2021
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson County$627K2024
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson County$557K2019
University of TennesseeKnoxville, Knox County$508K2021
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson County$475K2024
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson County$450K2022
University of MemphisMemphis, Shelby County$450K2021

Source: USAspending.gov; Federal Audit Clearinghouse. Past awards show who this program funds. They don't guarantee future awards.

Tennessee groups that got this money through a state agency or another organization

This federal money also reaches local groups as pass-through grants. 34 pass-through grants on file · 5 in Shelby County. Largest shown:

Tennessee pass-through grant winners
Past winnerWhereThroughAmountFiscal year
University of TennesseeKnoxville, Knox CountyArizona State University$638K2026
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson CountyUniversity of Florida$396K2026
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson CountyRegents of the University of Michigan$274K2025
University of MemphisMemphis, Shelby CountyArizona State University$238K2024
Vanderbilt UniversityNashville, Davidson CountyTrustees of Dartmouth College$155K2024
University of MemphisMemphis, Shelby CountyThe Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York$77K2025
State of TennesseeNashvilleArizona State University$71K spent that year2025
University of TennesseeKnoxville, Knox CountyIowa State University of Science and Technology$55K2023
East Tennessee State UniversityJohnson City, Washington CountyUniversity of Tennessee$50K2023
University of MemphisMemphis, Shelby CountyThe Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York$47K2024
State of TennesseeNashvilleUniversity of Texas at Dallas$44K spent that year2023
University of MemphisMemphis, Shelby CountyUniversity of North Carolina at Wilmington$44K2023

Source: USAspending.gov pass-through reports (the first recipient reports each one of $30,000 or more).

Similar grants open or opening soon

From other funders, about the same kind of work in Shelby County.

More from U.S. National Science Foundation

About the federal program

Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, also called “(SBE)”
Program number 47.075 (the federal Assistance Listing number) · National Science Foundation · Project grant

Match

None required (federal program listing).

This program on SAM.gov

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Source: Federal grants from Grants.gov · the official federal record. Last checked by GrantMe Oct 11, 2026.

Reference numbers: official notice number 25-531 · program number 47.075