Oregon Museum Of Science And Industry

Oregon Museum Of Science And Industry, a nonprofit educational institution in Portland, Oregon, operates as a prime recipient of federal grants funding the design, fabrication, and evaluation of science museum exhibitions and associated educational programming, with a secondary footprint as a subrecipient on research and STEM-outreach grants managed by academic institutions. The organization competes full-and-open across civilian agencies without set-aside designation.

The museum's prime work centers on culturally responsive informal science education and bilingual (Spanish-English) traveling exhibitions addressing climate change, environmental health, wildfire resilience, and Indigenous ways of knowing. Representative prime grants include a $110 thousand definitive contract from the Smithsonian Institution (awarded April 2026, completing June 2028) for design, fabrication, and evaluation of the Women and Space Traveling Exhibition; a $123.567 thousand Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Project Grant (November 2021–October 2022) supporting culturally responsive digital STEAM content development; an IMLS Project Grant (September 2024–August 2027) to update the museum's laboratory educational spaces in partnership with Project LEDO, a Portland-based community organization advancing equity in STEAM; and an NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences five-year Science Education Partnership Award (August 2023–June 2025) for a bilingual 1,400-square-foot traveling exhibition on wildfire and human health in a changing climate, developed with Oregon MESA, Oregon Health & Science University, and the World Forestry Center. The museum also received NSF Project Grants for a one-year planning project on wildland fire and cultural burning (September 2023–April 2025) and an integrating research and practice project on climate change conversations with Latiné audiences titled Voces de Esperanza (September 2023–April 2025), the latter executed in collaboration with AB Cultural Drivers and community partner Adelante Mujeres.

Customer concentration spreads across federal research and education agencies. The National Science Foundation leads by award count with 17 grants, the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science with 8 awards, and NASA's Shared Services Center with 7 awards ($429 thousand combined potential value). By dollar magnitude, NASA Shared Services and NASA Headquarters dominate the top tier ($429 thousand and $422 thousand respectively), followed by the Department of Veterans Affairs ($224 thousand) and NASA Goddard Space Center ($146 thousand); the Smithsonian Institution ($110 thousand) and IMLS round out the five-agency concentration. The portfolio reflects 84% prime-award split (64 of 76 total awards) across 20 distinct federal agencies.

Subrecipient work routes through academic institutions. Oregon Museum Of Science And Industry serves as a sub-recipient on NSF grants managed by Oregon State University (collaborative research on learning in and from environments through multiple ways of knowing; hydrologic response of headwater streams), Central Washington University (Northwest Earth and Space Science Pathways, a multistate NASA-focused STEM outreach and professional development program reaching underserved and underrepresented communities across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana), University of Alaska Fairbanks (traveling environmental biology exhibits for Alaska libraries and a pollination experience traveling exhibit), and Portland State University (Science Communication Fellowship and Meet a Scientist public education programs supporting a CAREER-grant earthquake research project). The museum also received sub-awards for physical security enhancements at two regional sites.

Activity accelerated 2022–2023 (two to seven grants annually) and has moderated to single-digit annual counts in 2024–2026. Two awards (combined potential value $110 thousand) face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and carry recompete exposure. Combined potential value across the seventy-six-award footprint is $3.6 million, with obligated dollars reaching $36.3 million — a signal of substantial multi-year grant rollover and renewal activity typical of mission-driven nonprofits in informal science education.