MEP Center State Competition (Base Cooperative Agreement)

MEP Center State Competition

Supports a designated state through a dedicated MEP Center to provide manufacturing technical assistance to small and medium firms.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

NOFO 2026-NIST-MEP-01 is a federal cooperative agreement competition run by NIST under Assistance Listing 11.611 — Manufacturing Extension Partnership. It designates one organization per state as the sole federally-recognized MEP Center for Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Each winning organization is responsible for delivering manufacturing advisory, technology-adoption, and workforce services to small and medium manufacturers across its entire state.

The total federal ceiling across all eight awards is $139,109,315 over five years. Individual state ceilings range from $3,566,000 (West Virginia) to $34,389,800 (New York), reflecting each state's manufacturing base. A mandatory 50% non-federal cost match is required, sourced from state or local government funds, private contributions, or client fees. Eligible applicants are nonprofits, universities, and state agencies located in or primarily serving the eligible state. Only one award is made per state — this is a winner-takes-all competition. The initial cooperative agreement runs five years, with a performance-based five-year continuation available. The FY2026 competition closed January 5, 2026; awards are in evaluation or pre-execution. State competitions run in rolling tranches — FY2025 covered 11 states, FY2026 covered 8 states — with future cohorts receiving new NOFOs on NIST's rolling five-year cycle.

Winning requires demonstrating capacity to serve the full state geography, a credible match funding plan, and a proven track record in manufacturing extension services. Applicants must register in SAM.gov, submit through Grants.gov (opportunity 360938), and address the scoring rubric in attached NOFO PDFs. Contact for programmatic questions: mepnofo@nist.gov. Organizations in states not included in FY2026 should monitor NIST.gov for future competition NOFOs as existing five-year agreements expire.