NSF EPSCoR E-RISE: $8 Million to Build a Research Incubator in 28 Eligible Jurisdictions — August 11 Deadline (NSF 25-522)

The NSF EPSCoR program exists to correct a structural imbalance: a handful of states and well-resourced universities historically capture a disproportionate share of federal research dollars, leaving the rest of the country competing uphill. EPSCoR — the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research — directs funding specifically to jurisdictions that have received a low share of NSF's research budget, so that research capacity is built in places the open competitions tend to overlook. Within that program, two complementary solicitations do different jobs, and understanding the division of labor between them is essential before writing either. Granted has already covered E-CORE — the grant that strengthens a jurisdiction's overall research ecosystem. This piece is about its sibling: E-RISE (EPSCoR Research Incubators for STEM Excellence), solicitation NSF 25-522, which builds the research engine itself. The FY2026 deadline is August 11, 2026.

What E-RISE funds, and how much

E-RISE funds research incubators — focused, jurisdiction-led programs designed to grow a specific area of research strength to the point where it can compete in the national open competitions on its own. The numbers are substantial: a maximum budget of $8 million over an initial four-year period, with the possibility of a renewal award of up to $4.5 million for an additional three years. NSF expects to make up to 15 awards annually, supported by as much as $31.5 million in annual program funding.

That funding profile signals the program's ambition. This is not seed money for a workshop series; it is a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment meant to take a promising research area in an under-resourced jurisdiction and build it into something durable — the people, the collaborations, the instrumentation, and the institutional commitment that let a research theme stand on its own after the award ends.

The distinction that decides which solicitation you write

The single most common mistake EPSCoR applicants make is conflating E-RISE and E-CORE, so it is worth drawing the line sharply.

• E-CORE (NSF 25-523) strengthens the statewide research ecosystem — the shared infrastructure, coordination, broadening-participation efforts, and connective capacity that benefit research across the whole jurisdiction. It is horizontal. Its FY2026 deadline is July 21.
• E-RISE (NSF 25-522) strengthens a specific research area — a focused incubator that takes one scientific theme and deepens a jurisdiction's competitiveness in it. It is vertical. Its FY2026 deadline is August 11.

A useful mental model: E-CORE builds the soil; E-RISE grows a particular crop. A jurisdiction can and often does pursue both, but a given proposal must commit firmly to one mode. An E-RISE proposal that reads like a general capacity-building plan — diffuse, spread across many fields, hedging on its focus — will be outcompeted by one that names a research theme and demonstrates a credible, fundable path to national competitiveness in it. The focus is the proposal.

Who is eligible — and why that list is the strategic frame

E-RISE is open only to eligible EPSCoR jurisdictions: states, territories, and commonwealths whose five-year history of total NSF funding, relative to NSF's total research budget over that same period, falls below the program's threshold. Roughly two dozen-plus jurisdictions qualify in any given cycle, and the precise list shifts as funding shares change — so the first action item for any prospective applicant is to confirm current eligibility on the NSF EPSCoR page, not to assume last cycle's status still holds.

Eligibility being jurisdiction-based has a profound consequence for how proposals come together. E-RISE is, in practice, a coordinated jurisdiction-level effort, typically organized through the state's NSF EPSCoR office and its statewide committee rather than assembled bottom-up by an individual lab. The award is a bet on a jurisdiction's chosen research direction, which means the internal process of selecting that direction — deciding which research theme best represents the state's competitive future — is itself a months-long act of consensus-building among universities, the EPSCoR committee, and state leadership. Jurisdictions that began that conversation in the spring are positioned for August 11. Jurisdictions only now asking "what should our incubator be about?" are likely already too late for this cycle, and should aim their effort at strengthening a theme for the next.

Why the August 11 deadline rewards earlier decisions

The compressed gap between the E-CORE deadline (July 21) and the E-RISE deadline (August 11) is not an accident, and it shapes strategy. A jurisdiction pursuing both must run two distinct proposal processes three weeks apart in mid-summer — and the temptation to recycle E-CORE language into the E-RISE submission is exactly the trap that produces weak, unfocused incubator proposals. The two require fundamentally different arguments. E-CORE asks "how will this strengthen research across our jurisdiction?" E-RISE asks "why this specific research area, why now, and what is the evidence we can become nationally competitive in it?"

Answering the E-RISE question well requires preparation that cannot be improvised in July: a defensible choice of theme, a team with demonstrated traction in that theme, a plan for instrumentation and talent that matches the $8 million scale, and a credible theory of how the incubator graduates into self-sustaining, externally funded research. The jurisdictions that win are the ones for whom August 11 is a submission date, not a decision date — the strategy was set months earlier.

What reviewers reward

Three qualities consistently distinguish funded E-RISE proposals.

First, a focused and well-justified research theme. Reviewers want to see that the jurisdiction picked an area where it has genuine, demonstrable potential — existing faculty strength, prior results, regional relevance — rather than chasing whatever field is fashionable. Focus reads as seriousness.

Second, a credible path to self-sufficiency. The implicit promise of an incubator is that after four years (or seven, with renewal) the research area can compete for funding through the standard national channels without EPSCoR's thumb on the scale. Proposals that articulate concrete milestones toward that independence — externally funded grants secured, faculty hired and retained, collaborations established — are far stronger than those that simply describe activities.

Third, authentic broadening of participation. EPSCoR's mission is fundamentally about bringing more of the country into competitive research. Incubators that meaningfully develop early-career faculty, students, and institutions that have historically been outside the research mainstream are advancing the program's core purpose, and reviewers weigh that heavily.

The bottom line

E-RISE is one of the most consequential capacity-building instruments NSF offers, and for an eligible jurisdiction it can transform a promising research area into a permanent competitive strength. But its structure rewards conviction over breadth: the $8 million goes to jurisdictions that chose a focused theme, built a credible team around it, and can argue persuasively that the incubator will make them nationally competitive on their own. With the deadline on August 11, 2026, the work that determines the outcome — selecting the theme, aligning the universities, assembling the evidence — should already be well underway. Jurisdictions still deciding what their incubator is about are not writing this cycle's proposal; they are building next cycle's case. Either way, the place to start is confirming eligibility and naming the research bet you are prepared to defend.

For the companion ecosystem grant, see Granted's E-CORE deep dive. To find EPSCoR and research-infrastructure funding matched to your institution, start a search on Granted.