Office of Multidisciplinary Activities

The National Science Foundation's Office of Multidisciplinary Activities within the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate funds and contracts research in interdisciplinary social science, behavioral science, and economic domains. The office operates as a grant-making and contracting entity within NSF, a cabinet-level civilian agency, and distributes funding across both competitive solicitation opportunities and institutional partnerships.

The office runs a relatively modest contract portfolio of 18 awards totaling $55.7 million in combined potential value since 2018, with $45.1 million obligated. Contract activity shows variable cadence: 5 awards in 2020, 1 in 2021, 6 in 2022, 1 in 2023, and 4 in 2024, with the most recent award dated September 2024. The contract base is concentrated by value, with the top five primes by potential value holding 95 percent of combined value across recent awards. National Opinion Research Center leads by dollar volume at $25.2 million (1 award), followed by Research Triangle Institute at $13.1 million and Synectics For Management Decisions, Inc. at $6 million. By award count, Transource Services Corp. holds 2 awards but only $28 thousand combined potential value, reflecting activity through smaller transactional vehicles; the top five by count cover 55 percent of recent awards. Sixteen distinct prime contractors have been awarded since 2018. Contract set-asides are minimal, with 61 percent of awards carrying no set-aside designation. Small-business set-asides account for 17 percent of awards, woman-owned small business for 11 percent, 8(a) sole-source and HUBZone each for 6 percent.

The grant program is substantially larger, with 572 total awards obligating $217.3 million in federal dollars since 2005. Recent grant activity shows 57 awards in 2022, 56 in 2023, 69 in 2024, 33 in 2025, and 71 year-to-date in 2026, with the most recent award recorded October 2026. Grant recipients are highly fragmented, with the top five by award count holding only 11 percent of recent awards and the top five by federal dollars holding 7 percent. Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University and University of California, Los Angeles lead by award count (7 awards each), while University of Southern California tops by federal dollars at $4.6 million across 6 awards. One hundred eighty distinct recipients have been funded across the portfolio. Grants are predominantly Project Grants (99 percent of awards), with Cooperative Agreements constituting 1 percent. The federal share represents 99 percent of total obligated dollars, indicating minimal non-federal cost-sharing requirements.

SMA provides a focal point for programmatic activities that cut across NSF and SBE boundaries and is SBE's broadest mechanism for contributing to NSF priorities. While many SBE programs support interdisciplinary work, SMA assists with seeding new multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary activities for the future and plays a critical role in the development of infrastructure underpinning these activities.