The NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) program funds large, multi-year, interdisciplinary materials-research centers rather than individual investigator projects. It is administered by the Division of Materials Research (DMR) within NSF’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and it is one of NSF’s oldest sustained large-center mechanisms for a single scientific discipline area. Awards are made as cooperative agreements, meaning NSF program staff maintain substantial ongoing programmatic involvement in a funded center rather than the largely hands-off relationship typical of a standard research grant.
This page covers what distinguishes an MRSEC proposal from other NSF materials-research mechanisms, how a center is structured internally, its current funding scale, and how it compares to smaller single-investigator and small-group NSF awards.
What makes a center an MRSEC
Under the current solicitation, NSF 26-500, a MRSEC proposal is organized around two or three Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) — the minimum and maximum are both fixed by the solicitation. Each IRG is a team of roughly six to twelve faculty investigators with complementary backgrounds working on a single fundamental materials-science topic aligned with DMR’s scientific scope. This IRG structure is what separates an MRSEC from a standard NSF research grant: the unit of funding is a coordinated, multi-investigator research group sustained over years, not a single PI’s project.
A MRSEC may be based at one institution or span a partnership of several. Eligible applicants are two- and four-year U.S. institutions of higher education, including community colleges, accredited in and with a campus located in the United States; individual faculty submit through their institution in the standard NSF proposal process.
Program structure: the components beyond the science
Beyond the IRGs themselves, a MRSEC proposal must build out several required components:
- Shared experimental and computational facilities. Centers must develop and staff shared instrumentation and computational resources that are accessible not only to the center’s own researchers but to the broader university community and outside users, and centers are expected to contribute to the national Materials Research Facilities Network. Proposals must detail existing facilities, planned new instrumentation, staffing, maintenance and operating plans, and user-access mechanisms — a heavier shared-infrastructure management obligation than most NSF awards carry, comparable in kind (though NSF-funded rather than built on the NIH S10 model) to the core-facility governance and cost-recovery questions research administrators handle for shared instrumentation elsewhere.
- Education and workforce development, centered on REU. A Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is a mandatory component, with the solicitation specifying that at least half of REU participation come from students outside the host institution. Broader participation and outreach activities must have clear, measurable, evidence-based goals, and proposals are expected to address pathways into STEM and partnerships with non-R1 institutions. See CASRAI’s guide to undergraduate research award programs for how REU sits alongside other student-research funding mechanisms.
- Center-level management and evaluation. Because an MRSEC is a single cooperative agreement covering multiple IRGs and shared facilities rather than a portfolio of separate grants, it requires a center director, a management plan, and external advisory input — administrative overhead that a standard research grant does not carry.
Funding scale and award mechanism
Under the active NSF 26-500 solicitation, individual MRSEC awards typically range from roughly $3 million to $4.5 million per year, with an initial award duration of up to six years. Centers are not renewed automatically at the end of that period: continuation requires a full re-competing proposal evaluated in open competition against new proposals for the same limited pool of center slots, rather than a routine progress-report-based renewal. NSF anticipates approximately $15 million in total program funding for the current competition cycle across all new awards, though the exact number of centers funded in a given cycle depends on the competition and available budget in that fiscal year. Because MRSEC funding levels and award counts are set fresh in each solicitation, always confirm current figures against the active solicitation on nsf.gov rather than a prior cycle’s numbers — NSF explicitly labels older MRSEC solicitations (e.g., NSF 19-517, NSF 21-625, NSF 25-532) as archived once superseded.
MRSEC vs. smaller NSF mechanisms
MRSEC sits at the large end of NSF’s materials-research funding spectrum. It differs from smaller DMR mechanisms in several concrete ways that matter for proposal strategy and institutional planning:
| Dimension | MRSEC | Standard NSF/DMR research grant |
|---|---|---|
| Unit funded | A multi-investigator center built around 2–3 IRGs | A single PI or small collaborative team on one focused research question |
| Award mechanism | Cooperative agreement, with ongoing NSF programmatic involvement | Standard grant, largely hands-off after award |
| Typical duration | Up to 6 years initially, re-competed thereafter | Typically 3 years, renewable by new proposal |
| Annual award size | Roughly $3M–$4.5M | Typically well under $1M/year for a single-PI award |
| Required components | Shared facilities, mandatory REU program, center management structure | Broader-impacts activities, but no mandated shared-facility or REU infrastructure |
| Institutional eligibility unit | Institution(s) hosting the center | Individual PI(s) |
The practical implication for a research administrator: a MRSEC proposal is closer in scale and complexity to a departmental strategic initiative than to a typical grant application. It requires the kind of multi-year institutional commitment — space, cost-share planning for shared facilities, coordination across multiple departments or partner institutions — that a standard research grant does not, and the proposal development timeline and internal routing should be planned accordingly. See CASRAI’s general guide on how to write a grant proposal for the baseline process this scales up from.
MRSEC vs. other NSF large-center mechanisms
MRSEC is not NSF’s only large-center program, and the names and structures are easy to conflate:
- NSF Engineering Research Centers (ERC), run by NSF’s Directorate for Engineering rather than DMR, fund larger, typically 10-year, multi-institutional centers built around industry-connected engineering innovation rather than a fixed set of IRGs. See CASRAI’s NSF Engineering Research Centers guide for the ERC structure in detail. ERC and MRSEC both fund large, sustained, multi-investigator centers, but they sit in different NSF directorates, run under different solicitations, and are not interchangeable mechanisms for a given proposal.
- Standard DMR single-investigator and small-group grants fund a specific research question without the shared-facility, REU, or center-management obligations MRSEC requires, and run on the shorter (typically 3-year) NSF standard-grant cycle.
A center should be scoped as an MRSEC proposal specifically when the science genuinely requires the sustained, multi-PI, shared-infrastructure model the mechanism is built for — not simply because a research group is large. NSF’s merit review for MRSEC proposals evaluates the IRGs’ interdisciplinary integration and the shared-facility and education plans as core review criteria, not as an afterthought to the science.
Frequently asked questions
Is MRSEC funding a grant or a cooperative agreement?
A cooperative agreement. This means NSF program officers have substantial, ongoing programmatic involvement in how a funded center operates, distinct from the more limited role NSF plays in a standard research grant after award.
How many IRGs does a MRSEC need?
A minimum of two and a maximum of three Interdisciplinary Research Groups per center, per the current solicitation (NSF 26-500).
Can a community college host or partner in a MRSEC?
Yes. The solicitation’s eligibility language covers two- and four-year U.S. institutions of higher education, including community colleges, accredited in and with a campus located in the United States.
Does an MRSEC renew automatically after its initial award period?
No. The initial award runs up to six years, and continued funding requires a full re-competing proposal evaluated against new proposals in open competition, not an automatic renewal.
How does MRSEC differ from NSF Engineering Research Centers?
Both are large, sustained, multi-institutional NSF center mechanisms, but MRSEC is run by the Division of Materials Research around a fixed 2–3 IRG structure, while ERC is run by NSF’s Directorate for Engineering around industry-connected, typically 10-year engineering innovation centers. They use separate solicitations and are not interchangeable.
