The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is publishing this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) pursuant to authority provided by section 1741(f) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (Pub. L. 116-92, December 20, 2019), to be codified in the NIST Organic Act at 15 U.S.C. ยง 278s(f), as amended.
Collectively, Manufacturing USA institutes have over 2,000 member institutions including small manufacturers, two-thirds of Fortune 50 U.S. manufacturers, and nearly every top ranked research and engineering university in the United States. Its network of research and development institutes that engage with these industry-led institutions positions it well to distribute high-impact funding into existing efforts in the manufacturing sector to both stimulate the US economy and to support efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health crises.
Projects should focus on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Projects may include medical countermeasures; non-medical countermeasures; leveraging institute capabilities to strengthen state and community resilience; grants to companies and technical support to accelerate productions of critical materials, equipment, and supplies; creation of additional production facilities; technology road-mapping for pandemic response and recovery; re-shoring the manufacture of critical conventional drugs and ensuring supply chain for critical materials related to pandemic response; or workforce development and training for a skilled advanced manufacturing workforce.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of potential proposal topics, but examples. Any proposals responsive to public needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be considered.
The Manufacturing USA institutes, for example, can direct expertise in manufacturing scale up toward critical technologies such as: wearable and environmental sensors for biothreat detection and personal protective equipment; agile, intensified and automated biomanufacturing platforms for medical counter measures; re-shoring the supply chain for critical raw materials needed to manufacture medical counter measures; and reducing the energy and environmental impact of the above. Through the Manufacturing USA network, they can also efficiently resource collaborative projects between institutes for these efforts.
In addition to developing materials for direct production of medical countermeasures, the manufacturing sector needs to alleviate shortages in advanced manufacturing technology. The Manufacturing USA institutes, working as appropriate with Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers, for example, can leverage their expertise to retool factories to convert their traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing facilities; retooling examples include adding smart sensing for digital tracking of supply chain, advanced automation, and digital controls.
Proposals can provide support to existing or planned state or other non-federal efforts to develop needed local manufacturing capabilities to respond to COVID-19 and other public health crises, for example. Examples include retooling of existing manufacturing equipment to support specific needs for personal protective equipment, increasing capacity for needed testing supplies, institute-led projects that speed production and increase quality control using automated production of medical implements; rapidly deployable hospital set-ups to meet the need in critical locations.
Proposals can leverage technical expertise at the Manufacturing USA institutes to provide targeted grants to accelerate production of critical materials, equipment, and supplies needed for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health crises, for example. The institutes can also propose technical support to ensure rapid, successful deployment of new equipment. Examples include advanced manufacturing equipment for producing of critical equipment, such as equipment for producing N95 masks; additive and composites; manufacturing of tooling for critical needs; and portable and deployable equipment for emergency response.
