The U.S. National Science Foundation announced 21 awards for 2023 that invest over $35 million across 40 institutions in 25 states, including six Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research jurisdictions.
Through the Future Manufacturing program, the NSF makes targeted investments in the future of manufacturing research and helps grow the manufacturing workforce. It is one of several NSF programs that support advanced manufacturing.
The Future Manufacturing program's purpose is to discover manufacturing solutions that overcome current scientific, technological, educational, economic and social barriers to provide new manufacturing capabilities for U.S. companies. This is the fourth year of NSF investment in Future Manufacturing, totaling more than $137 million.
"NSF has a critical role in developing advanced technologies, growing the workforce and building resilient supply chains to bolster U.S. manufacturing," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "NSF will continue to push the frontiers of what is possible — advances such as the manufacturing of biological therapeutics, manufacturing in space and underwater and optimizing manufacturing with AI — to improve our nation's prosperity, competitiveness and quality of life."
The 2023 awards consist of:
- 10 research grants that each receive up to $3 million over four years for convergence research of significant scope, including fundamental research and workforce development.
- 11 seed grants that each receive up to $500,000 over two years to develop multidisciplinary teams and generate preliminary results leading toward a research grant proposal.
The new projects focus on three areas:
- Biomanufacturing research that harnesses biology and/or integrates biological materials in manufacturing.
- Cyber-manufacturing research that transforms the predictability, security, reliability and efficiency of manufacturing.
- Eco-manufacturing research that redesigns entire manufacturing lifecycles and supply chains for sustainability.
