Expert advice for every grant — from EPA to DARPA

Starting May 25, 2026, NIH will reject new proposals unless every covered individual has completed compliant research security training within the prior 12 months. NSF, USDA, DOE, and DOD enforce the same rule. Here is what the CHIPS Act actually requires, who counts as a covered individual, and the one-hour module that satisfies all five agencies.

Schmidt Sciences' 2026 Science of Trustworthy AI RFP closes May 17 with two funding tiers — up to $1M (Tier 1) and $1–5M+ (Tier 2) over 1–3 years, with a 10% indirect cost cap. The three research aims target misalignment under distribution shift, predictive-validity evaluations, and oversight of superhuman systems. Here is why the structure favors team-based proposals.

The Department of Education's FY2026 Comprehensive Centers Program competition, published in the Federal Register on May 8, restructures a 60-year-old technical assistance program around state-defined priorities. The headline change is the joint board with the Regional Educational Laboratories. The under-discussed change is the field-initiated content center category — and it is the most consequential opening for issue-specific organizations in a decade.

On June 3, 2026, four DARPA Biological Technologies Office SBIR topics close simultaneously — SWiFT, BARK, EXPOSITION, and Medical Swarm Robotics. Combined Phase I plus Phase II potential exceeds $6 million per company, and together they sketch a coherent strategy of distributed, autonomous, dual-species combat casualty care that depends on small businesses, not primes, to actually build.

Federal grants move $1.2 trillion a year — roughly 20 percent of all federal spending and more than the entire rest of the appropriations budget combined. After 140,000 federal RIFs and a wave of False Claims Act enforcement, the system that distributes one-fifth of all federal dollars is operating on a thinning bench of trained grants personnel. The Council on Federal Financial Assistance is racing to standardize Notices of Funding Opportunity, but reform is moving slower than attrition.

The HHS Grants Policy Statement that took effect October 1, 2025 raised the micro-purchase threshold to $50,000, the single audit threshold to $1 million, and the de minimis indirect cost rate to 15 percent — quietly rewriting the operational rules for tens of billions of dollars in annual awards. Combined with full 2 CFR Parts 200 and 300 adoption and new MAHA-aligned program priorities, it is the biggest compliance shift for health grantees since Uniform Guidance arrived in 2013.

NSF's December 2025 merit review changes look procedural — two outside reviews instead of three, optional panels, three-to-five-sentence summaries. The deeper shift is the transfer of decision authority from external peer reviewers to a smaller cohort of program officers, and it will reshape how every proposal needs to be written.

The Strategic Breakthrough Awards mechanism authorized in the February 2026 SBIR reauthorization is the first post-Phase II funding instrument in program history. The mandatory 100 percent private match and the four-year performance window reposition SBIR from research subsidy to commercialization accelerator — and small businesses that do not understand that pivot will fail to compete for the first solicitations in Q4.

ARPA-H's new Intelligent Generator of Research program turns the classic biomedical pipeline on its head — an AI system proposes the next experiment, robotic labs run it, and mechanistic models of chronic disease get rebuilt from the resulting evidence. The funding call asks teams to compete across four loosely coupled technical layers that have never been delivered together.

DARPA's ALIAS Missionized Autonomy for Emergency Services topic closes May 13, 2026 — and the choice to use an SBIR XL designation to fund civilian wildfire autonomy through a defense procurement is the most consequential signal about where federal dual-use funding is heading in 2026.

NASA's 2026 SBIR/STTR program drops the January Mainline solicitation in favor of a rolling Broad Agency Announcement that runs through September 2027. Appendix A and B are live, Appendix B closes May 21, and the proposal-cap arithmetic that has governed NASA small business strategy for two decades just changed.

A former 22-year NIH program officer found 205 of 336 listed funding forecasts had blown past their promised posting dates with no announcement ever published. Combined with a 54 percent year-over-year drop in competitive awards, the picture is of a science funding shutdown executed through bureaucratic delay rather than budget cuts.

On July 1, 2026, Pell Grants extend to workforce programs as short as 150 clock hours — but only if a Governor signs off, a state workforce board concurs, and the program clears completion, placement, and value-added earnings benchmarks. The biggest expansion of federal student aid in a generation runs through a state-by-state approval pipeline that almost no one has staffed for.

The Education Department's sixth and seventh interagency handoffs to DOL open the FY2026 Career Pathways Exploration and Teacher Quality Partnership competitions. Eligibility, deadlines, and the workforce-development reframe explained.

Cummings Foundation will distribute $30 million to 150 Boston-area nonprofits in 2026 — and 25 of those grants will be paid out over a full decade. Inside the most patient capital model in mainstream U.S. philanthropy.

DOL's fourth-round State Apprenticeship Expansion Formula funds AI infrastructure, nuclear, shipbuilding, and advanced manufacturing workforce pipelines across all 50 states.

EPA's Gulf of America Farmer-to-Farmer program awards $1.5M-$2.5M grants for farmer-led organizations scaling regenerative agriculture. Applications due June 19, 2026.

SBA's new E2G Manufacturing Grant funds 10 organizations to train small manufacturers in aerospace, robotics, and advanced manufacturing. Deadline June 15, 2026.

A single NIH policy notice threatened to strip $5.24 billion from research universities. Two courts blocked it. Congress weighed in. The fight is far from over.

The National Science Foundation is running two funding realities at once: a Congressional budget that rejected historic cuts and a DOGE campaign that gutted STEM education and social science research.

Federal grant opportunities have dropped 33%. Private foundation giving is up 5-7%. The math does not work — and the organizations that understand why will be the ones that survive.

DOE awarded seven regional hydrogen hubs under the bipartisan infrastructure law. Two were cancelled, two are in limbo, and the courts are involved. A full accounting of where each hub stands.

DOE's Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator funds lithium extraction, rare earth recycling, and semiconductor-grade refining. Staggered deadlines run through July 2026.

The Ford Foundation committed $60M in democracy grants within 100 days of new leadership. What it means for nonprofits working on civic engagement, voting rights, and election integrity.

NASA shifted SBIR/STTR to a rolling BAA model with 50% higher Phase I awards ($225K), reset proposal limits per appendix, and year-round submission windows. What small businesses need to know.

DOD will spend its entire reconciliation windfall in FY2026 — five years of funding in twelve months. A breakdown of the AI, quantum, shipbuilding, and munitions allocations that defense innovators need to track.

ARPA-H's new Intelligent Generator of Research program will fund ~3 teams to build an AI-powered research ecosystem. Solution summaries due June 25, 2026.

The Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, FIRE Collaboratives, and INFUSE are building a public-private fusion pipeline modeled after NASA COTS.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act channels $3.5 billion toward immigration enforcement grants while the DOJ redirects $117 million from victim services. Here is what it means for agencies and nonprofits competing for federal justice funding.

The FRA Railroad Crossing Elimination program is the only federal grant dedicated to grade crossing safety. With 2,000 annual collisions and 300 fatalities, the $1.15 billion FY2025-2026 round closes June 8, 2026.

The White House has withheld funding for 35 education grant programs seven months into the fiscal year. If OMB does not release the money by September, $1.4 billion returns to the Treasury unspent.

The BARK program funds dual-use medical products for warfighters and military working dogs — tourniquets, sensors, drug delivery, and CBRN countermeasures. Proposals close June 3, 2026.

The Economic Development Administration is distributing $1.45B to disaster-affected communities through rolling applications. Nearly half of US counties qualify, but 61% have never received place-based federal funding.

The RCORP-Planning and RCORP-Impact programs offer $100K to $750K/year for rural communities fighting substance use disorder. Applications close May 29 and June 1. A strategic guide for first-time and returning applicants.

The FY2026 SEED competition offers $1M-$6M awards for teacher and principal development. The unusual DOL-DOE partnership, AI education priority, and June 1 deadline explained.

USDA just opened the FY2026 Distance Learning and Telemedicine grant program. We break down eligibility, scoring, match requirements, and strategy for the $50K-$1M awards closing June 30.