NSF MRI Awards and Award History 2026

This guide is for: Research office staff running internal MRI competitions, faculty planning shared instruments, core facility managers, and department chairs who want the real NSF Major Research Instrumentation award history, recent award sizes by track, and where the program stands before the next solicitation appears.

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Full answer: NSF MRI awards have fallen from 182 records dated 2019 to 65 dated 2026, according to a Grantsights pull of the NSF Awards API on October 12, 2026. The 2026 median award was $750,000, almost double the 2019 median of $383,562. The solicitation, NSF 23-519, is archived, NSF skipped the FY2026 proposal window, and NSF says an updated solicitation is expected for FY2027. No new MRI deadline was posted on the program page as of October 12, 2026.

Next route: Read the NSF MRI equipment grant guide, compare the NIH S10 instrumentation guide for biomedical shared equipment, and search other equipment funding with the free grants search.

NSF MRI Awards and Award History: Recent Winners, Tracks, and Amounts

Data note: Grantsights pulled the NSF Awards API on October 12, 2026 three ways for award dates January 1, 2019 through October 12, 2026: the fund program name "Major Research Instrumentation," the keyword MRI, and the phrase "Major Research Instrumentation." After removing duplicates, 1,065 records either carried MRI program element 118900 or had "MRI:" in the title. Years use the initial award date. Amounts use estimatedTotalAmt, NSF's planned total for the award, which for MRI almost always equals the money obligated. Collaborative and consortium projects produce one record per institution. All three raw pulls are stored as JSON files.

NSF's status message is short. According to the NSF MRI program page, merit review of proposals submitted in FY2025 under NSF 23-519 is nearly complete and should finish before the end of FY2026, and NSF anticipates an updated solicitation for proposals in FY2027. The same page labels NSF 23-519 as archived.

According to NSF's July 2, 2025 MRI notice, NSF didn't accept new MRI proposals during the scheduled FY2026 window of October 15 to November 14, 2025, and returned any submitted then without review. NSF said it would instead consider more awards from the FY2025 pool, which had been submitted October 15 to November 15, 2024. That notice also said NSF anticipated accepting proposals again from October 15 to November 16, 2026, but no updated solicitation or deadline had been posted when Grantsights checked on October 12, 2026.

Grantsights analysis of 1,065 MRI award records shows a program that made fewer but larger awards each year since 2023. The records dated 2025 and 2026, 125 in all, mostly come from the same FY2025 proposal pool, so those two years together describe one competition, not two.

MRI Awards By Year, 2019 To 2026

NSF made 65 MRI awards dated 2026, 64% fewer than the 182 dated 2019, while the median award nearly doubled, according to the October 12, 2026 Grantsights pull.

Total MRI dollars held near $100M a year through 2023, then fell to $73.8M on 2024 records and about $61M to $69M in each of the next two years. Because awards are larger, the count fell faster than the money.

The EPSCoR column counts records that also carry NSF's EPSCoR co-funding program element. It peaked at 30 in 2023 and shows none on 2026 records. That's worth checking for institutions in EPSCoR jurisdictions, since co-funding can tip a borderline proposal. The NSF EPSCoR guide explains how that co-funding works.

Award timing shifted too. Of the 65 records dated 2026, 32 were dated in August and 10 in July, but 23 arrived between February and May, earlier in the calendar year than most 2024 awards, which were dated almost entirely in August 2024. NSF's notice about funding more FY2025 proposals during FY2026 is consistent with that spread, though the records themselves don't label which proposal pool each award came from.

A red flag for planners: the yearly counts in this table aren't success rates. NSF doesn't publish proposal totals in the award records, and institutions run internal limited-submission rounds before anything reaches NSF.

Award Size By Track, 2024 To 2026

NSF 23-519 split MRI into 3 tracks, and Track 2 awards dated 2025 took $39.4M, more than half of that year's MRI dollars, according to the Grantsights pull of NSF records.

Track counts come from titles, so records without a track label in the title, mostly consortium or older-format titles, sit in the last column. According to NSF, Track 1 requests under $100,000 were allowed only from certain math and social science applicants or from non-PhD-granting institutions.

The Track 1 median rose from $539,140 on 2024 records to $722,231 on 2026 records. Specifically, half of 2026 Track 1 awards were above $722,231, which suggests that the instruments winning Track 1 money aren't small purchases. Teams that underestimate quotes, service contracts, and installation costs end up asking for less than the field typically receives.

The 5 Largest MRI Awards Dated 2026

Five awards dated 2026 each exceeded $2.5M, and all five were Track 2 projects, according to NSF award records pulled October 12, 2026.

Two of the five are development projects that build a new instrument rather than buy one. Across all 65 records dated 2026, Grantsights counted 8 titles with "Development" and 55 with "Acquisition."

Across the 232 records dated 2024 through 2026, the most common instrument words in titles were microscope (36 titles), spectrometer (27, including 15 mass spectrometers), X-ray (20), NMR (16 counting "nuclear magnetic"), confocal (13), and computing cluster (13). Telescopes and GPU systems appeared 6 times each.

Directorates, States, And Institutions, 2024 To 2026

Among 232 MRI records dated 2024 through 2026, Mathematical and Physical Sciences managed 75 and Engineering 60, according to the October 12, 2026 pull of NSF records.

MRI money is spread unusually widely. The 232 records went to 185 different organizations in 47 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. No institution had more than 3 records in the three years; the 10 tied at 3 include Duke University, UC Berkeley, Washington University, Kansas State, Colorado State, North Dakota State, the University of Maine, the University of Wyoming, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the University of South Carolina.

That spread follows from the per-organization limits. With at most four proposals per competition, even a large research university can't stack MRI awards the way it can with research grants. A school's internal selection is the real competition, and the NSF MRI equipment grant guide covers how to prepare for it.

What NSF Award Search Doesn't Tell You About MRI

NSF Award Search lists 65 MRI awards dated 2026, but at least 4 planning questions aren't answered by those records.

The biggest unknown is the next solicitation. Every number on this page came from awards made under NSF 23-519. NSF hasn't said whether the track sizes, the per-organization limits, or the 5-year cost-sharing waiver that started with the FY2023 competition will carry forward. Some university research offices have already run FY2027 internal rounds based on the old rules; any of those selections may need a second look once NSF posts the new document.

The second unknown is the pipeline. NSF said it would fund more FY2025 proposals during FY2026, and the 65 records dated 2026 show that happened. The award records can't show how many FY2025 proposals remain pending, if any.

The third is shared-use evidence. Reviewers weigh how many users and projects the instrument serves, and the award abstract usually summarizes that in a paragraph. Award Search won't show the user lists or letters behind it.

Apply, Wait, Or Switch Routes: 5 Checks For FY2027

With no current MRI solicitation, the useful decision now is how to prepare, according to the program status NSF posted and the 2024 to 2026 award records.

For biomedical cores, the NIH S10 instrumentation guide covers NIH's shared equipment program. For projects above the MRI ceiling, the NSF Mid-scale RI-1 guide explains NSF's next tier. Faculty who need an instrument inside a single research project can often budget it there instead; the NSF CAREER winner history shows how early-career awards are sized.

Skip a rushed MRI draft built on the old track sizes until NSF publishes the new solicitation, but don't skip the groundwork. Quotes, user lists, a management plan, and institutional commitments for operations and maintenance take months and will be needed whatever the new rules say.

3 Takeaways From 1,065 MRI Records

According to NSF award records pulled October 12, 2026, MRI went from about 170 awards a year in 2019 to 2022 to about 60 a year on 2025 and 2026 records.

First, MRI is now a smaller program with bigger awards. The 2026 median of $750,000 compares with $383,562 in 2019.

Second, Track 2 is where the money concentrates. Thirteen Track 2 records dated 2025 carried $39.4M, more than all 39 Track 1 records that year combined ($24.6M).

Third, timing is the open question. NSF's own notice pointed to an October 15 to November 16, 2026 window, but the program page on October 12, 2026 still showed an archived solicitation and no posted deadline. Watch the program page and NSF's funding search, and confirm any date with the published solicitation before planning around it.

Sources

• NSF MRI program page - nsf.gov
• NSF notice on MRI changes for FY2026, July 2, 2025 - nsf.gov
• NSF 23-519 solicitation (archived) - nsf.gov
• NSF Awards API, pulled October 12, 2026 - api.nsf.gov
• NSF Award Search - nsf.gov

Related Guides

• NSF MRI equipment grant guide
• NIH S10 instrumentation guide
• NSF Mid-scale RI-1 guide
• NSF EPSCoR guide
• NSF CAREER winner history
• NSF grants complete guide