Request for proposals
The Critical Technology Initiative (CTI) is pleased to announce a request for proposals for seed funding projects for Fall 2025. CTI will fund 2-6 projects with a combined program budget up to $500K. The period of performance should be one year and start no later than January 1, 2026 and end by December 31, 2027.
All applications must be submitted via this Google Form.
Timeline
- September 19, 2025 (12:00-1:00 p.m.): Information Session (Wean Hall 4109)
- September 30, 2025: Applications Due
- October 17, 2025: Announcement of Awards
Questions
Please direct any questions regarding the proposal process to cmu-cti@andrew.cmu.edu. Once your proposal is submitted, the review board will not be responding to questions regarding the status of individual proposals.
RFP details
The Critical Technology Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University invites research proposals from teams of two or more faculty members that bring together interdisciplinary expertise to advance “analytics to help governments more smartly invest in and enact policies in technologies critical to national security, economic competitiveness, and the well-being of all citizens.”
Submissions are due September 30th.
Proposal objectives
Projects should demonstrate how analytics can transform what is possible in terms of:
- providing timely awareness of global science, technology, production, or supply chain capabilities;
- quantifying technology and product criticality to national defense, economic competitiveness and the well-being of citizens, including trade-offs between national missions and/or stakeholder values.
- prioritizing technology investments and policy actions, including cross-agency missions;
- assessing or exploiting technical and/or global interdependencies, that advance or hinder competitiveness in critical technologies, and for what purpose; and/or
- assessing the efficacy of policy interventions
Proposal evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated by ad-hoc reviewers, primarily CMU faculty members, without a conflict of interest, and then ranked and decided upon by a selection committee with one representative each from engineering, computer science, engineering and dietrich college. Final approval of grant awards will be made by CTI Leadership.
Review criteria are:
- Applicability to CTI’s core mission: Extent to which project directly addresses CTIs mission of analytics to help nations more smartly invest in and enact policies around technologies critical to national security, economic competitiveness, and the well being of all citizens. Note: CTI does not fund the technologies critical to the national purpose themselves, rather the analytics to guide governments’ investments therein.
- Novelty: Extent to which project presents a novel capability or idea;
- Policy impact: Likelihood and significance of project impact on the field of critical technology analytics and/or real-world technology policy and investment decisions;
- Cross discipline: At least two investigators representing different disciplines
- Follow-on funding: Extent to which a seed investment from CTI may increase the investigators’ prospects of winning subsequent externally sponsored awards
- Quality and fit of the expertise of the team to the project; and
- Budget reasonableness (e.g., Can the proposed work and outcomes be accomplished within the budget?)
We are particularly interested in projects that demonstrate how novel insights into technology capabilities, investment and policy can be achieved by combining methods across two or more of the following:
- engineering (including techno-economics, deep technical, sectoral data and expertise)
- economics (including industrial organization, labor, trade, innovation and supply chain economics)
- computer science (including machine learning, natural language processing, crowd-sourcing)
- the humanities and social sciences including political science (including security studies and international relations), history, psychology, organization sciences, or decision-sciences.
Proposals will only be considered if they involve multiple investigators that represent multidisciplinary interactions (cross-college preferred but could also be interdepartmental). Proposals that are simply requesting funding to continue an existing and/or mature line of work will not be considered. However, coalescing of individually existing and/or relatively mature areas into a new intellectually merged activity is encouraged when it meets the CTI objectives.
Preference will be given to proposals where short-term investment from CTI may increase prospects of winning externally sponsored awards, and projects that leverage seed funding to catalyze partnerships for data and/or matching funds with relevant private firms (including intelligence or defense contractors), non-profits (e.g., trade unions, RAND, MITRE) or government entities.
All proposals will be treated as confidential with respect to protecting investigator ideas. That said, we reserve the right to be proactive. For example, depending on the ideas we receive, we may approach investigators to explore possible alternative or additional collaborations when it might add valuable new perspectives to a project. We may also ask investigators to revise proposals prior to funding, based on reviewer feedback. We may also, if relevant, approach other CMU institutes about providing matching funds for select proposals and approach proposers about opportunities to field their proposal with government and industry partners and other potential funders.
Application process and timeline
Investigators should prepare a brief proposal (1-inch margins, 11-point Times Roman type, single spaced, three pages including budget and budget description). Submissions as PI are limited to one per person (not precluding participation as Co-PIs on other proposals).
CTI plans to fund 2-6 seed projects with a total budget up to $500K. This amount represents the total amount available to projects and has already had the F&A removed; fringe benefit charges must still be part of the submitted budget. Research project proposals should be one-year in duration.
Applications are due September 30, 2025 and the awards are expected to be announced by October 17, 2025. Applications must be submitted on Google Forms. Proposals must not exceed 3 pages (budget and references do not count toward the page count).
We will be available to answer questions at an information session on Friday, September 19, 2025 from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. in Wean 4109.
Submission format
Proposal Title
PI Name, Department; Co-PI Names, Departments
Project Summary: Provide a summary of the proposed activity that outlines the concept to be explored and/or problem to be addressed and explains why it is important. Include background literature, research question, methods, data, and why the project is important.
Expected Outcomes: Provide a summary of the expected knowledge generated by the project and the corresponding outcomes. Explain how the expected outcomes demonstrate concept viability. For example, outline what might be presented to government and corporate leaders near the end of the project (e.g. for future funding or at a Critical Technology Summit).
Applicability to CTI’s Core Mission : How does the proposed project directly advances CTI’s mission of “providing neutral analytics to help government more smartly invest and enact policies in technologies critical to national security, economic competitiveness, and the well-being of all citizens”?
Novelty: How does your research advance the possibility frontier in terms of analytics to help government more smartly invest and enact policies in technologies critical to national security, economic competitiveness, and the well-being of all citizens? Are you pioneering new methods? Combining methods across disciplines in a novel way? Quantifying national outcomes in new ways?
Policy Impact: If you are successful, how would your work change the possibility frontier for national investment and policy-making around technologies critical to national purpose? Do you have stakeholders (citizens, industry, government) engaged in your work? How will you disseminate your outputs to stakeholders and policy-makers?
Leverage: Discuss how CTI seed funding will catalyze an expanded activity, including specific sources that will be sought for future funding and the long-term potential for growth of this activity. Describe existing committed partnerships for data or funding that this seed will catalyze or prospects for matching or in-kind support that could amplify the impact of the grant in the future. Describe the closest related work currently underway at CMU by the team, clarifying the uniqueness and novelty of the proposed project.
Expertise: Describe the partitioning of work among the team and their relevant expertise. All proposal submissions must include at least one (1) CMU faculty member.
Budget: Provide a budget and justification appropriate for the proposed scope of work using the provided budget template to be uploaded separately. A combined program budget of up to
$500K will be used to fund 2-6 projects . This amount represents the total amount available to projects and has already had the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) burden removed. The period of performance should be one year and start no later than January 1, 2026 and end by December 31, 2027. The goal for the CTI proposal is to seed pioneering new research in this area. Describe any committed data or cost share from partners (e.g., industry, government) as applicable. If there is existing financing in place for your project, provide an explanation on specifically what the seed funding would support that could not be undertaken under the existing funding, and why that support is important.
Awarded project requirements
As part of accepting an award, recipients will be required to participate in CTI seminars, to submit mid-way and final reports outlining the progress of the project and any publication, dissemination, and follow-on funding results; and to provide summary and presentation information upon occasional request to include with CMU and CTI communications materials. Additionally, award recipients will be expected to present projects at the CTI Summit involving industry executives and government leaders. The first CTI Summit will be convened in Fall 2025. Additional meetings may occur annually depending upon future program plans. PIs may also be asked to present their work as part of representing CMU and CTI in other contexts, as relevant. IP developed under the projects remains under the default standard terms of the university, unless otherwise waived by the university.