Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure

The Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program is administered by the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency established to promote scientific progress and support research and education across science and engineering disciplines in the United States. Through competitive grants and cooperative agreements, NSF funds projects that enhance national research capabilities. The CICI program specifically targets improvements in the security, privacy, and resilience of scientific cyberinfrastructure, which includes computing systems, data platforms, networking environments, and increasingly, artificial intelligence-driven research tools. The primary objective of the CICI program is to advance scientific discovery by strengthening the cybersecurity posture of cyberinfrastructure used by researchers. The program emphasizes applied research that develops, deploys, and integrates security solutions tailored to the unique needs of modern, distributed, data-intensive science. It recognizes that scientific environments differ significantly from traditional enterprise systems, requiring specialized approaches that balance usability, collaboration, and security. Projects must demonstrate clear benefits to scientific communities, including improving data integrity, enabling secure collaboration, and enhancing reproducibility of scientific results. Funding is available across four program areas: Usable and Collaborative Security for Science, Reference Scientific Security Datasets, Transition to Cyberinfrastructure Resilience, and Integrity, Provenance, and Authenticity for Artificial Intelligence Ready Data. Each track supports different types of cybersecurity innovation, ranging from usability-focused tools and dataset development to deployment of advanced security technologies and protection of AI-driven research workflows. Awards vary by track, with funding up to 1,200,000 dollars for projects lasting up to three years. Total program funding is estimated between 8,000,000 and 12,000,000 dollars, subject to availability of federal funds. Cost sharing is explicitly prohibited. Eligibility is limited to U.S.-based institutions of higher education and nonprofit, non-academic research organizations such as museums, observatories, and professional societies. There are no restrictions on who may serve as a principal investigator, although individuals may only participate in up to two proposals under this solicitation. Collaborative projects must be submitted as a single proposal with subawards rather than separate submissions. The program encourages partnerships among researchers, infrastructure operators, and domain scientists to ensure solutions are practical and broadly beneficial. Applications must be submitted through Research.gov or Grants.gov in accordance with NSF’s Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide. Required components include a detailed project description, budget, data management plan, and supplementary documentation such as lists of personnel and letters of collaboration. Proposals are evaluated using NSF’s merit review criteria, focusing on intellectual merit and broader impacts, as well as additional factors such as innovation, collaboration, dataset sharing practices, and long-term sustainability of outcomes. The application timeline includes recurring annual deadlines. For this cycle, full proposals were due on January 21, 2026, with future deadlines scheduled for the third Wednesday in January each year. NSF typically provides funding decisions within approximately six months after the submission deadline. Awardees must comply with standard NSF reporting requirements, including annual and final project reports submitted through Research.gov. Program contacts include Daniel F. Massey and Kevin Thompson, who serve as points of contact for inquiries related to the solicitation.

Ensure proposals clearly demonstrate scientific impact, cybersecurity innovation, collaboration with domain scientists, and alignment with FAIR data principles