Research opportunities in space and earth sciences (ROSES) 2025

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) announces that its annual NASA Research Announcement (NRA), Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) – 2025 will be released on or about July 10, 2025.

ROSES is an omnibus solicitation with many individual program elements, each with its own due dates and topics. Table 2 and Table 3 of this NRA, which will be posted at https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2025table2 and https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2025table3, respectively, provide proposal due dates and hypertext links to descriptions of the solicited program elements of this NRA. Together, these program elements cover the wide range of basic and applied supporting research and technology in space and Earth sciences supported by SMD.

The ROSES NRA is written to allow program elements to issue awards to non-governmental organizations as grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts depending on the nature of the work proposed. However, at the time of release, all active program elements of ROSES specifically exclude contracts, because contracts would not be appropriate for the nature of the work solicited. Thus, unless otherwise specified by the program element, awards to non-governmental organizations deriving from ROSES will be federal assistance. Awards to government labs, including funded Co-Investigators on proposals non-governmental organizations, will be inter- or intra-agency transfers, as appropriate.

Except for China (see Section III.c of the ROSES Summary of Solicitation), organizations of every type, domestic and foreign, government and private, for profit and not-for-profit, may submit proposals without restriction on teaming arrangements. However, not all organizations will receive funding; foreign organizations in general are not funded, see https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/faqs/#faq-14. Also, Earth Science Division (i.e., Appendix A) program elements have a new eligibility restriction: Federal agencies other than NASA and FFRDCs other than JPL will not receive funding from Appendix A elements. Team members from government agencies other than NASA are welcome at no cost (as unfunded Co-Is or collaborators).

Awards range from under $100K per year for focused, limited efforts (e.g., data analysis) to more than $1M per year for extensive activities (e.g., development of hardware for science experiments and/or flight). Periods of performance are typically three years, but some programs may allow up to five years and others specify shorter periods.

The funds available and the anticipated number of awards are given in each program element and range from less than one to several million dollars, allowing for selection from a few to as many as several dozen proposals. Continued solicitation of proposals and issuance awards is contingent on appropriation of funding.

Electronic submission of proposals is required by the respective due dates for each program element and must be submitted by an authorized official of the proposing organization. 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.

Every organization that intends to submit a proposal in response to ROSES must be registered with NSPIRES; organizations that intend to submit proposals via Grants.gov must be registered with Grants.gov in addition to being registered with NSPIRES. Such registration must identify the authorized organizational representative(s) who will submit the electronic proposal. All proposal team members must be registered in NSPIRES regardless of the submission system so we may perform automatic organizational conflict of interest checking of reviewers. Potential proposers and proposing organizations are urged to access the system(s) well in advance of the proposal due date(s) of interest to familiarize themselves with its structure and to enter the requested information.

Notices of intent to propose and Step-1 Proposals will be due no earlier than August 11, 2025, and full (Step-2) Proposals will be due no earlier than September 8, and may be due as late as May 2026, at which time it is expected that the first full (Step-2) proposal due dates for ROSES-26 will begin.

Potential proposers are strongly encouraged to read Section I(d) of the ROSES Summary of Solicitation and ROSES-25 FAQ#1 that list significant changes from recent ROSES.

Compliant and responsive proposals are peer reviewed vs. the standard evaluation criteria defined in Section 12 of the NASA Grants and Cooperative Agreement Manual (GCAM) available on the Grants Policy web page at https://www.nasa.gov/grants-policy-and-compliance-team/#Regulations.

ROSES clarifications, corrections and amendments occur over the course of the year; TBD program elements are finalized, and due dates released. To learn of the addition of new program elements and all amendments to this NRA, proposers may:

(1) Subscribe to the SMD mailing lists (by logging in at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and checking the appropriate boxes under "Account Management" and "Email Subscriptions").

(2) Get automatic updates of due dates using the ROSES-2025 due date Google calendar, see How to Subscribe to the ROSES-2025 Due Date Calendars at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/library-and-useful-links; and

(3) Check the ROSES-2025 Blog at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-2025/

Frequently asked questions about ROSES-2025 will be posted at http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/faqs/ shortly after release.

Questions concerning the individual program elements in ROSES should be directed to the point(s) of contact in the Summary Table of Key Information at the end of the program element and at http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/program-officers-list/.

Subject matter experts are encouraged to sign up to be a volunteer reviewer at https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/volunteer-review-panels