A major federal grant program that helps researchers purchase scientific equipment has seemingly gone dark, leaving scientists unsure of whether they will be able to apply for funding.
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program provides funding for the development or acquisition of state-of-the-art, often expensive equipment that researchers use to perform fundamental science and engineering experiments. These could be for kits such as clusters of GPUs to power research into artificial intelligence, which can run into the millions of dollars to buy and install, or highly specialized lasers or microscopes. Grant applicants can ask for up to $4 million, and they must demonstrate that the equipment will be used by several groups or experiments—a condition that can make the submission process more complicated than for other grants.
In a statement released last year, the NSF said it planned to accept submissions in 2026 between October 15 and November 16. But the proposed opening date, October 15, has come and gone.
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It’s the second year in a row that MRI applications have hit a speed bump. In 2025 the NSF suspended applications for the 2026 fiscal year. The agency said it had an enormous backlog of meritorious proposals from the previous year that it would consider funding instead.
When asked for comment, an NSF spokesperson said the agency is “currently working to update this funding opportunity,” but did not confirm to Scientific American when the submission process might open.
The delay comes amid numerous shakeups to federal funding of science. The Trump administration has cancelled numerous grants that had already been granted through the NSF, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies, and has attempted to introduce a major overhaul that would have granted sweeping oversight of grants to political appointees rather than the panels of experts currently in place. That change was temporarily halted in a recent government bill but could be reintroduced in December. The Trump administration has said these changes have been conducted in the name of promoting “gold standard science.”
Several people involved in submitting MRI grant applications say they have received no word from the NSF as to when the submission period for this year might open. Laura Rodman, a grant proposal consultant, says she was told by a contact at major grant consultant firm McAllister & Quinn that proposal solicitations would start shortly after the federal government’s new fiscal year began on October 1.
“We’re still waiting,” she says.
The lack of clarity on when, or if, the submission period will open is leaving U.S. universities and research institutions in the lurch. One grant specialist at an American university who asked to remain anonymous to protect their privacy says schools are often limited in the number of MRI grants they can apply for. In turn, universities often run their own internal, highly competitive submission process before applying—a time-consuming effort for researchers and their labs.
“Nobody knows when the deadline will be or if it will even happen, so the act of planning to apply is a gamble,” the specialist says. “Are these faculty wasting their time?”
Even the simplest grant proposal may require up at least 30 to 40 hours of preparation, according to one scientist, who also asked to remain anonymous because they currently have a proposal pending at the NSF. That workload is increased for MRI grants, because of the need to show high levels of collaboration between research teams.
“Grants are very competitive, so an investigator must write the strongest argument they can for why taxpayer funds should go to their project,” the scientist says. “Scientific instrumentation is expensive, and the NSF wants to see that a new instrument will be used regularly. Many MRI requests involve four to six scientists, which increases the coordination needed to write a compelling proposal.”
The fact that the grants are written for groups of scientists means that a delay in the submission process can ripple out and affect multiple research projects.
“If you have a broken $700,000 instrument, or an instrument that is rapidly approaching the end of its useful life, a delay could have significant consequences,” the scientist says. “Researchers may put their projects on hold, or worse, waste money on Band-Aid repairs when a replacement would be far more efficient.”
“Moreover, sometimes a few months can be the difference between a high-impact publication and getting scooped,” they add.
The delays are particularly acute given the rising concerns about the U.S. falling behind international competitors in STEM fields; the NSF is a major funding source for critical research fields, such as chemistry and physics, the scientist says.
“For researchers without National Institutes of Health funding, the MRI program is often the only available option,” they add.