Merck Family Fund Grants

This program element does not have a proposal due date. Proposals may be submitted at any time, pending certain eligibility timing issues related to resubmissions and duplicate proposal avoidance, see the program element text and appropriate overview appendix (e.g., B.1 or C.1). The date shown of 8/1/2026 is the last day that proposals may be submitted subject to the ROSES-25 rules and the current GCAM. The ROSES-26 version of this program element is planned to overlap with this ROSES-25 version by a few weeks, allowing continuous submission of proposals across ROSES years. NOTICE: Updated July 21, 2026. The Anticipated Award Start Date for last submissions in Table C.2-1 in Section 3.1 has been updated. The requirements for Biographical Sketches and Current and Pending Support in Section 3.5 have been updated, as have the Expected program budget for first year of new awards and Number of new awards pending adequate proposals of merit in Section 6. New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through. NOTICE: Research security training required starting August 5, 2026. All PIs and any Co-Is that would spend ≥ 10% time on a proposed grants or cooperative agreements must certify they have taken research security training. NASA will be satisfied with the four online research security training modules on the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Research Security Training website at https://www.nsf.gov/research-security/training or the SECURE Center condensed version of the four modules at https://www.secure-center.org/ctm NOTICE: Amended July 2, 2026. Table C.2-1: Submission and Review Dates in Section 3.1 has been updated and a new row with a new final cut-off date of November 12, 2026, has been added. In addition, this amendment reminds proposers of two important upcoming process changes: Potential proposers are reminded in Section 3.1 that for any proposal for federal assistance submitted > August 5, 2026, PIs and any Co-Is that would spend > 10% time on a proposed grants or cooperative agreements must certify they have taken research security training. NASA will be satisfied with the four online research security training modules on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Security Training website at https://www.nsf.gov/research-security/training or the SECURE Center condensed version of the four modules at https://www.secure-center.org/ctm The Summary of Requirements for Expertise and Resources Not Anonymized Document in Section 3.5 was updated to indicate that biographical sketches and current and pending support documents submitted after September 1, 2026 must use the NASA-specific Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae (SciENcv) format found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sciencv/ per Grant Notice 26-01. NOTICE: Amended, January 22, 2026. Table C.2-1: Submission and Review Dates in Section 3.1 has been updated and a new final row with a cutoff date of August 1, 2026, has been added. Also, the expected budget and number of new awards in Section 4 have been increased. New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through. NOTICE: Corrected September 9, 2025. NASEM Astrobiology Strategy citation was corrected to 2019 (see Section 1.1.3), reference to the anonymized Table of Work Effort was added to Section 3.2, and HEC request is not included in anonymized proposal (see Section 3.5). New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through. NOTICE: ROSES-25 Amendment 7 makes the following changes to C.1 the Planetary Research Overview: It establishes funding threshold and submission requirements for substantial instrument or equipment requests (Section 3.11), removes the estimated page limit for pilot studies (Section 3.4) and clarifies text on use of spacecraft mission data (Section 3.5). New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through. A Planetary Science Overview FAQ has been posted under other documents on NSPIRES pages for all of Appendix C. NOTICE: Amended August 1, 2025. This amendment makes several changes: It establishes that the anonymized Table of Work Effort and references are outside of the 5-page S/T/M section (see Section 3.2), removes an exclusion regarding data archiving (see Section 2.1), changes the first proposal submission cut-off date for inclusion in the Winter 2025 review to September 15, 2025, changes the second estimated review date to Spring 2026 (see Table C.2-1 in Section 3.1), and removes the HEC requirement in the S/T/M as it appears as a cover page question, see Section 3.2. New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through. This synopsis is a generic summary that is posted for each of the many individual "program elements" in NASA’s Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) – 2025 solicitation. For specific information on this particular program element download and read the PDF of the text of this program element by going to Tables 2 or 3 of ROSES at https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2025table2 and https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2025table3, respectively, click the title of the program element of interest, a hypertext link will take you to a page for that particular program element. On that page, on the right side under "Announcement Documents" the link on the bottom will be to the PDF of the text of the call for proposals. For example, if one were interested in the Solar System Science program (NNH25ZDA001N-SCUBED) one would follow the link to the NSPIRES page for that program element and then to read the text of the call one would click on “C.2 Solar System Science (.pdf)” to download the text of the call. If one wanted to set it into the context of the goals, objectives and know the default rules for all elements within Appendix C, the planetary science division, one might download and read “C.1 Planetary Science Research Program Overview (.pdf)” from that same page. While the letters and numbers are different for each element within ROSES (A.10, B.3, etc.) the basic configuration is always the same, e.g., the letter indicates the Science Division (A is Earth Science, B is Heliophysics etc.) and whatever the letter, #1 is always the division overview. In 2025, most program elements will be set up for application via Grants.gov only if requested at least 30 days in advance of the due date. For more on Grants.gov submissions see Section IV(b)v of the ROSES Summary of Solicitation, that may be found at https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2025. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) released its annual omnibus Research Announcement (NRA), Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) – 2025 (OMB Approval Number 2700-0092, CFDA Number 43.001) on February 21, 2025. In this case "omnibus" means that this NRA has many individual program elements, each with its own due dates and topics. All together these cover the wide range of basic and applied supporting research and technology supported by SMD. Awards will be made as grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts depending on the nature of the work proposed. However, most extramural research awards deriving from ROSES will be grants, and many program elements of ROSES specifically exclude contracts, because contracts would not be appropriate for the nature of the work solicited. Funded Co-Is at government labs will receive inter- or intra-agency transfers. The typical period of performance for an award is three years, but some programs may allow up to five years and others specify shorter periods. In most cases, organizations of every type, Government and private, for profit and not-for-profit, domestic and foreign (with some caveats), may submit proposals without restriction on teaming arrangements. Tables listing the program elements and due dates (Tables 2 and 3), a table that provides a very top level summary of proposal contents (Table 1), and the full text of the ROSES-2025 "Summary of Solicitation", may all be found NSPIRES at https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2025. Frequently asked questions for ROSES are posted at http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/faqs. Questions concerning specific program elements should be directed to the point(s) of contact for that particular element, who may be found either at the end of the individual program element in the summary table of key information or on the web list of topics and points of contact at: http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/program-officers-list. General questions concerning ROSES-2025 may be directed to the office of the SMD Deputy Associate Administrator for Research at sara@nasa.gov. Not all program elements are known at the time of the release of ROSES. To be informed of new program elements or amendments to this NRA, proposers may subscribe to: (1) The SMD mailing lists (by logging in at http://nspires.nasaprs.com and checking the appropriate boxes under "Account Management" and "Email Subscriptions"), (2) The ROSES-2025 blog feed for amendments, clarifications, and corrections to at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/solicitations/roses-2025/, and (3) The ROSES-2025 due date Google calendars (one for each science division). Instructions are at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/library-and-useful-links (link from the words due date calendar). Funding Opportunity Number: NNH25ZDA001N-SCUBED. Assistance Listing: 43.001. Funding Instrument: CA,G. Category: ST.