Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems

Closed Posted

Opportunity number
24-606
Agency
Applications due
Award size
$300,000 to $1,500,000

Opportunity facts

Assistance listings
Funding instrument
Grant
Category
  • Science and Technology and other Research and Development
Eligible applicants
  • Other
Points of contact
Full announcement

Opportunity details come from Grants.gov. Updated .

About this opportunity

Written by GovTribe AI ·

The Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program, administered by the National Science Foundation, seeks to establish new managing organizations for existing open-source products and projects with potential for broad adoption and societal impact. Applicants must demonstrate the capacity to create and manage processes, infrastructure, and governance structures necessary for efficient and secure development of sustainable open-source ecosystems comprising leadership teams, external developer communities, and diverse user bases across academia, industry, and government. The program evaluates proposals based on the viability of the proposed managing organization, the existing open-source product's potential for adoption, the applicant's ability to coordinate external contributions, and the expected broader societal impact of the ecosystem. This initiative represents NSF's new pathway for translating scientific innovations into technologies with national significance, distinct from commercialization-focused programs such as NSF I-Corps and SBIR/STTR. The application deadline is September 1, 2026.

While specific award values are not detailed in the provided materials, typical NSF grants under related programs range from $100,000 to $3,500,000 with project durations spanning one to five years. The POSE program supports the formation of managing organizations responsible for establishing the infrastructure, governance, and community coordination mechanisms necessary to transform NSF-funded open-source products into self-sustaining ecosystems. Performance of work will be conducted at the applicant's institution or designated managing organization location, which may include academic research institutions, nonprofit organizations, or other entities capable of establishing formal governance structures and development frameworks for open-source communities.

Synopsis

2 versions

Update #2 · Latest ·

The Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program aims to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. Many NSF-funded projects result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open-source products, including software, hardware, models, specifications, programming languages, or data platforms that catalyze further innovation. In some cases, an open-source product that shows potential for wide adoption forms the basis for a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem (OSE) that comprises a leadership team; a managing organization with a well-defined governance structure and distributed development model; a cohesive community of external intellectual content developers; and a broad base of users across academia, industry, and/or government. The overarching vision of POSE is that proactive and intentional formation of managing organizations will ensure adoption of open-source products; increased coordination of external intellectual content developer contributions; and a more focused route to technologies with broad societal impact. Toward this end, the POSE program supports the formation of new OSE managing organizations based on anexisting open-source product or class of products, whereby each organization is responsible for the creation and management of processes and infrastructure needed for the efficient and secure development and maintenance of an OSE. POSE constitutes a new pathway to translate scientific innovations, akin to the Lab-to-Market Platform that NSF has pioneered over many decades. Whereas programs like theNSF Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps™)andAmerica's Seed Fund[Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)]represent an integrated set of programs to provide researchers with the capacity to transform their fundamental research into deep technology ventures, POSE is specifically focused on another translational pathway - supporting the transition from open-source research artifacts to OSEs. Importantly, the POSE program isnotintended to fund thedevelopmentof open-source products, including tools and artifacts. The POSE program is alsonotintended to fund existing well-resourced, open-source communities or ecosystems. Instead, the program aims to supportnewmanaging organizations to catalyze distributed, community-driven development and growth ofnewOSEs. The expected outcomes of the POSE program are to grow the community of researchers and innovators who develop and contribute to OSE efforts, and to enable pathways for the safe and secure development of OSEs that have broad societal impacts. OSEs can emerge from any areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) research and development. This solicitation seeks two types of proposals, allowing teams to propose specific activities toscope and planthe establishment of an OSE (Phase I), and toestablisha sustainable OSE based on a robust open-source product that shows promise in the ability to both meet an emergent societal or national need and build a community to help develop it (Phase II). Phase I: OSE Scoping and Planning Proposals Phase I projects are for open-source research products with a small community of external users though the product may not necessarily have external content developers. The objectives of Phase I projects are to: (1) enable scoping activities that will inform the transition of promising research products that are already available in open-source formats into sustainable and robust OSEs that will have broad societal impacts, and (2) provide training to teams interested in building such an OSE. Phase I awardees are not obligated to submit Phase II proposals in the future. Phase II: Establishment and Expansion Proposals Phase II projects are for open-source research products with small, existing communities of external usersandexternal content developers. The objective of Phase II projects is to support the transition of a promising open-source product into a sustainable and robust OSE. Phase II proposal teams are expected to have already conducted the scoping activities needed to develop a detailed project plan to support the community-driven distributed development and deployment of successful open-source tools into operational environments (not necessarily via a Phase I award). An NSF POSE Phase I award is not required for the submission of a Phase II proposal.

Update #1 ·

The Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program aims to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. Many NSF-funded projects result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open-source products, including software, hardware, models, specifications, programming languages, or data platforms that catalyze further innovation. In some cases, an open-source product that shows potential for wide adoption forms the basis for a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem (OSE) that comprises a leadership team; a managing organization with a well-defined governance structure and distributed development model; a cohesive community of external intellectual content developers; and a broad base of users across academia, industry, and/or government. The overarching vision of POSE is that proactive and intentional formation of managing organizations will ensure broader and more diverse adoption of open-source products; increased coordination of external intellectual content developer contributions; and a more focused route to technologies with broad societal impact. Toward this end, the POSE program supports the formation of new OSE managing organizations based on anexisting open-source product or class of products, whereby each organization is responsible for the creation and management of processes and infrastructure needed for the efficient and secure development and maintenance of an OSE. POSE constitutes a new pathway to translate scientific innovations, akin to the Lab-to-Market Platform that NSF has pioneered over many decades. Whereas programs like theNSF Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps™)andAmerica's Seed Fund[Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)]represent an integrated set of programs to provide researchers with the capacity to transform their fundamental research into deep technology ventures, POSE is specifically focused on another translational pathway - supporting the transition from open-source research artifacts to OSEs. Importantly, the POSE program isnotintended to fund thedevelopmentof open-source products, including tools and artifacts. The POSE program is alsonotintended to fund existing well-resourced, open-source communities or ecosystems. Instead, the program aims to supportnewmanaging organizations to catalyze distributed, community-driven development and growth ofnewOSEs. The expected outcomes of the POSE program are to grow the community of researchers and innovators who develop and contribute to OSE efforts, and to enable pathways for the safe and secure development of OSEs that have broad societal impacts. OSEs can emerge from any areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) research and development. This solicitation seeks two types of proposals, allowing teams to propose specific activities toscope and planthe establishment of an OSE (Phase I), and toestablisha sustainable OSE based on a robust open-source product that shows promise in the ability to both meet an emergent societal or national need and build a community to help develop it (Phase II). Phase I: OSE Scoping and Planning Proposals Phase I projects are for open-source research products with a small community of external users though the product may not necessarily have external content developers. The objectives of Phase I projects are to: (1) enable scoping activities that will inform the transition of promising research products that are already available in open-source formats into sustainable and robust OSEs that will have broad societal impacts, and (2) provide training to teams interested in building such an OSE. Phase I awardees are not obligated to submit Phase II proposals in the future. Phase II: Establishment and Expansion Proposals Phase II projects are for open-source research products with small, existing communities of external usersandexternal content developers. The objective of Phase II projects is to support the transition of a promising open-source product into a sustainable and robust OSE. Phase II proposal teams are expected to have already conducted the scoping activities needed to develop a detailed project plan to support the community-driven distributed development and deployment of successful open-source tools into operational environments (not necessarily via a Phase I award). An NSF POSE Phase I award is not required for the submission of a Phase II proposal.

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