New guidelines issued by NSF still limit the number of submissions per institution to three. However, they are no longer distinguishing Acquisition and Development. With this round, institutions are permitted up to two submissions requesting between $100,000 to less than $1 million from NSF (Track I), and no more than one submission requesting between $1 million up to and including $4 million from NSF (Track II). Proposal submissions within the two tracks may be either for acquisition or development of a research instrument.

NSF strongly values MRI proposals that seek to develop next-generation research instruments that open new frontiers of research. As a result the MRI program seeks to support development proposals in numbers (i.e., up to 1/3 of awards) consistent with recent competitions, depending on the numbers and quality of the proposals.

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