OpenDeadline extended (was Apr 2, 2025)Research announcementOpportunity 25-531

Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)

At a glance

Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) is an open federal grant opportunity from U.S. National Science Foundation. Applications are due January 20, 2027. Individual awards are listed as up to $1.2M, with about 20 awards expected and $12M in total estimated funding. Applicant types listed as eligible include others (see notice). Cost sharing is not required. It is funded under Assistance Listing 47.075 (Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences).

Summary assembled from the official notice's fields. The official notice governs.

Key facts

Jan 4, 2025Posted
Jan 20, 2027Application deadlinenext date
Feb 19, 2027Archived

Posted: Jan 4, 2025
Close date: Jan 20, 2027
Archive date: Feb 19, 2027
Award floor: Not specified
Award ceiling: $1,200,000
Est. total funding: $12,000,000
Original deadline (extended): Apr 2, 2025
Expected awards: 20
Cost sharing: Not required
Funding instrument: Grant
Opportunity category: Discretionary

Who can apply

Others (see notice)

Additional information on eligibility (from the 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.

Also named in the notice's eligibility text

Public colleges & universities
501(c)(3) nonprofits
Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status
Private colleges & universities

Matched from the wording above by GrantsJunction — confirm in the full announcement.

Can your organization apply?

A quick check against the listed applicant types — other requirements in the notice still apply.

Based on the published notice. Review the official notice for complete eligibility requirements.

What it funds

Official synopsis as published by the agency, formatted for readability.

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.

Additional information from the agency ↗

How to apply

0 of 8 done · progress saved in this browser

Read the full announcement (NOFO)Eligibility, evaluation criteria, page limits and required attachments are in the full notice on Grants.gov. Open ↗
Confirm eligibility and fitCheck your organization type above; no cost sharing is required.
Register (or renew) in SAM.gov and get a UEIFree. New registrations can take several weeks; registrations must be renewed every year. Open ↗
Set up Grants.gov accessCreate a Grants.gov account and make sure someone has the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) role. Open ↗
Open the application packageUse opportunity number 25-531 on Grants.gov (Grants.gov Workspace). Open ↗
Prepare narrative, budget and attachmentsFollow the notice's format exactly — page limits and required forms are common reasons applications are rejected.
Ask the agency contact any questions earlyU.S. National Science Foundation · grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov Open ↗
Submit before January 20, 2027Submit a few days early and keep your Grants.gov confirmation and validation emails.

Assistance Listing

What is an ALN?

47.075Social, Behavioral, and Economic SciencesProgram →

Reported obligations under ALN 47.075

Historical data · not a prediction

FY24

$292M

FY25

$219M

FY26

$92.2M est.

Source: SAM.gov Assistance Listing 47.075. Program-wide totals, not awards from this specific opportunity.

Agency contact (as published)

U.S. National Science Foundation
grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov
703-292-4203

Quick answers

When is the deadline for “Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)”?

According to the official notice, applications are due January 20, 2027. Confirm the deadline and submission time on Grants.gov before applying.

Who is eligible to apply for “Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)”?

The official notice lists these applicant types as eligible: Others (see notice). Additional restrictions may apply; review the full notice.

How much funding is available through “Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)”?

Per the notice, individual awards are listed as up to $1.2m, total estimated program funding is $12,000,000 and the agency expects to make about 20 awards.

How do I apply for “Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)”?

Applications are submitted through the official source, not through GrantsJunction. Open the official notice on Grants.gov (opportunity 25-531), and review the full announcement and application package. Organizations applying through Grants.gov generally need an active SAM.gov registration and a Grants.gov account, which can take several weeks to set up.

Matched on shared Assistance Listings, agency, categories and eligible applicant types.

OpenDeadline extendedResearchALN 47.041, 47.049…