Expert advice for every grant — from EPA to DARPA

Judge Colleen McMahon ruled on May 7 that DOGE's mass termination of 1,400 NEH grants violated the First and Fifth Amendments. The order rescinds termination letters but does not force payment. What humanities organizations should actually do in the next 90 days.

NIH's NOT-OD-25-132 bars applications 'substantially developed by AI' — but ten months in, the working rule is disclosure, not a tool ban. Here is what counts.

NIH's Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Program certification leniency window closes in May 2026. After it ends, every senior/key person on every NIH RPPR must clear SciENcv validation or block the report. The compliance details PIs are missing.

NSF's new X-Labs initiative — $1.5B over a decade, $50M/year Phase 1 awards, OTA mechanism, July 13 deadline — is a structural break from the standard cooperative agreement model. Here's what it means for teams chasing the first two topics.

On May 12, USDA Rural Development adopted the department's modernized NEPA framework at 7 CFR Part 1b, retiring 7 CFR 1970 and changing how environmental review interacts with every RD grant application. The technical changes, the transition dates, and how applicants should adjust their timelines.

The Department of Education's redesigned Comprehensive Centers Program competition opened May 8, 2026 with $46.015M for roughly 19 awards. Three tracks — National, Regional, Content — and a redesigned mandate to align with state priorities. Here is how the field has shifted.

DARPA BTO pre-released four FY26 SBIR/STTR topics on April 30, 2026, with proposals due June 3. Two topics — SWiFT and EXPOSITION — offer Direct-to-Phase-II awards up to $1.5M, bypassing the standard Phase I gate. Here is what each topic is actually solving, why the DP2 structure matters, and how small biotech, surgical robotics, and battlefield-medicine teams should decide whether to compete.

EPA's Gulf of America Division announced up to $50 million for the Farmer-to-Farmer grant program on May 5, 2026, with 20–30 awards of $1.5M to $2.5M each across EPA Regions 3–8 and a June 19, 2026 deadline. The funding rewards farmer-led organizations that can demonstrate working-lands conservation at scale. Here is how the eligibility, partnership structure, and watershed geography actually decide the awards.

The joint NSF-NIH Smart Health and Biomedical Research solicitation supports high-risk, high-reward AI/data science work in health — $300K per year for four years, with 20+ NIH institutes participating. Here is how the program actually selects winners.

On April 13, 2026, President signed S. 3971 reauthorizing SBIR/STTR through September 30, 2031 — the longest extension in program history. The new law introduces $30M Strategic Breakthrough Awards, FY2027 proposal caps to address SBIR mills, expanded foreign-risk screening, and stronger TABA support. Here is how small businesses, university spinouts, and dual-use startups should reposition for the next two solicitation cycles.

The Workforce Pell final rule hit the Federal Register on May 19, 2026. Programs of 150-599 clock hours, 8-15 weeks, with 70% completion and placement thresholds qualify — but only with Governor and Department approval. Here is what institutions must do now.

ARPA-H disclosed in the IGoR solicitation (ARPA-H-SOL-26-155) that secure LLMs will assist initial review of submitted materials — a direct departure from NIH's ban on generative AI in peer review and NSF's pending working-group deliberations. The policy split signals where federal proposal review is headed and what applicants need to do differently.

Humanity AI — backed by Ford, Mellon, MacArthur, Doris Duke, Lumina, Kapor, Mozilla, Omidyar, Packard, and Siegel — announced $8 million to 12 inaugural grantees and reserved $10 million for a summer 2026 open call. The collaboration signals a new model for foundation funding in the AI era. Here is what the inaugural cohort tells you about the summer call, and how to position your organization to compete.

NSF 25-540 puts $30 million into roughly 29 awards across three tracks — TTP-E at $600K, TTP-T at $1.2M, TTP-P at $2M. Each demands a different posture on partnerships, prior NSF funding, and the mandatory $50,000 I-Corps Teams allocation. The May 19, 2026 deadline is a forcing function that strips ambiguity out of every PI's translation story.

The National Science Foundation announced $1.5 billion over a decade for X-Labs — milestone-based, Other Transactions Authority awards built around independent teams of researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs. The first two topics target quantum-enabled imaging and quantum interconnects. Here is what the new mechanism means for traditional grantees and what the first round actually demands.

USDA Rural Development released $17 million in Community Connect grants for unserved rural communities (10/1 Mbps threshold) and $27 million in Distance Learning and Telemedicine grants for places under 20,000 residents. Deadlines are June 29 and 30, 2026. Here is how to read the eligibility rules, which applicants actually clear them, and what the FY2026 round signals about USDA broadband priorities.

Western SARE's 2026 Research & Education grant cycle uses a pre-proposal gate before full proposals are invited. The June 15 deadline determines who gets to compete for up to $350,000 over three years — and the pre-proposal is graded on different criteria than the full proposal. Here's what that asymmetry means for sustainable-ag teams across thirteen Western states and four territories.

The FTA's FY2026 Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development Planning published in the Federal Register on May 11 makes $28,492,618 available with a July 10 deadline — but eligibility is restricted to existing FTA grantees, applicants must either sponsor an eligible fixed-guideway capital project or hold land-use planning authority in its corridor, and a documented partnership between the two is required. The eligibility architecture, not the funding amount, defines the universe of viable applicants.

NASA released a Broad Agency Announcement on April 17, 2026, that replaces the agency's traditional annual SBIR/STTR solicitation cycle with a phased-appendix model valid through September 30, 2027. Appendix A and Appendix B opened April 21 with a May 21 deadline; additional appendices will release throughout the BAA period. The shift breaks the once-a-year proposal cadence small businesses have planned around since the program's founding and demands a different operational posture.

The SBA's new $50M Empower to Grow (E2G) manufacturing grant initiative announced May 6 funds only 10 awards of $5M each, restricts applicants to organizations with three years of continuous operation and documented hands-on manufacturing training capacity, and pairs the grant program with a 90 percent Made in America loan guarantee. The eligibility floor — not the funding ceiling — is the operative constraint.

The Competitive Grants for State Assessments FY2026 competition — innovative assessment item types and meaningful learning opportunities as absolute priorities, three competitive preference priorities, two invitational priorities, and a June 16 deadline — reshapes the operational definition of what state assessment systems are expected to do. Notice published May 5, applicant webinar held May 11.

The Department of Education's reimagined Comprehensive Centers Program competition — $46M total, National plus Regional plus Content Centers, field-initiated priorities, June 30 deadline — restructures how technical assistance reaches state education agencies. Intent to apply due May 29.

DARPA pre-released four FY26 SBIR topics on April 30 — SWiFT field transfusion, BARK K-9 therapeutics, EXPOSITION finger regeneration, and PEPI photonic-electronic integration. Phase I awards range $150K-$300K, with Direct-to-Phase-II up to $1.8M. Closing June 3.

Ten foundations pooled $500M for a five-year people-centered AI initiative. The first $18M tranche — $8M to 12 inaugural grantees at $500K each, $3M to AI Civics, $10M open call this summer — locks in the doctrinal frame nonprofits will need to fit.

USDA Rural Development's FY2026 Rural Business Development Grants NOFO published May 15 — Opportunity grants capped at 10 percent of annual funding, Enterprise grants for small and emerging rural businesses, awards obligated by July 31, and applications routed through state offices on locally-set deadlines. The state-office routing is the operational detail that decides who gets funded.

The Water Research Foundation's RFP 5394 — up to $200,000 to evaluate GenAI and Agentic AI scalability across at least six water and wastewater utilities, NIST AI RMF integration required, proposals due 3 p.m. Mountain Time on May 20 — is the first major sector-utility-funded AI research initiative to bake risk-management framework compliance into the work statement. Four days remain.

DOE's FY2026 University Nuclear Research Infrastructure Revitalization NOFO closed May 13 with a single multi-year consortium award above $6M. The structure signals where federal nuclear R&D is heading and how universities should organize for FY27.

HRSA's FY2026 Rural Residency Planning and Development Program closes today. Fourteen awards of up to $750,000 over three years to launch new rural residencies in six specialties. The economics, the eligibility, and what FY27 applicants need to know.

NSF 26-200 quietly rewrote the merit review process effective December 15, 2025 — minimum reviews dropped from three to two, panels became optional, and program officer discretion expanded substantially. Combined with 1,752 grant terminations and a constrained $8.75B FY2026 budget, the funding calculus has shifted. Here's how to adapt.

NSF's TechAccess: AI-Ready America program commits roughly $168M over three years to 56 State/Territory Coordination Hubs at $1M/year each, with a Letter of Intent due June 16, 2026 and the first 10 full proposals due July 16. Here's the eligibility, strategy, and political context every prospective hub needs.

The FY2026 Uniform Guidance changes raised the Single Audit threshold from $750K to $1M and rewrote procurement, equipment, and subrecipient monitoring expectations — but the bigger story is the new enforcement posture making federal funding a fundamentally different risk profile for nonprofits, universities, and state/local governments. Here's what changed and how to adapt.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's From Insight to Action call — $8M total, twenty $500K awards, two-year community-partnership requirement — closed letters of intent May 14. The structural shift in how RWJF will fund health equity research through 2028.

ARPA-H's Intelligent Generator of Research program plans roughly three Other Transaction agreements covering four technical areas over five years, with solution summaries due June 25 and full proposals August 6. The structure rewards multi-institution consortia that can deliver a closed-loop AI research ecosystem — not labs proposing isolated tools.

The EDA's May 11 NOFO will award 5-8 grants of $1M-$8M for AI workforce training — but only to employer-led sectoral partnerships, not standalone training providers. With a 60% federal cap and a 24-36 month performance period, the design favors regional coalitions over universities. Here is how to assemble a winning application.

Humanity AI — a five-year, $500 million coalition co-chaired by Omidyar Network and MacArthur — released its first $18M of grants on May 12. Twelve organizations received $500K each; a $10M open call launches this summer. Here is the coalition's theory of change, who got funded, and how to position for the open call.

NASA released its 2026–2027 SBIR/STTR Broad Agency Announcement on April 17, with Appendix 2026A/B Phase I submissions closing May 21 at 5pm ET. Phase I awards rose 50% to $225K, Phase II to $1.275M, and the BAA replaces the old annual solicitation with continuous appendix releases. Here is what the structural shift means for small-business strategy.