Standardization Center of Excellence

The national interest in critical and emerging technologies (CETs) and associated areas of standardization demands an increased level of coordination and effort and will require the rapid development of new ways for public- and private-sector stakeholders to work together to advance U.S. national security and economic competitiveness. An effective Standardization Center of Excellence (SCoE) will facilitate U.S. ability to meet these challenges by focusing on all aspects of standardization for critical and emerging technologies.

The SCoE will focus on four broad areas:
A. Prestandardization Engagement. This includes (1) purposeful convening to produce seed documents to lay the foundation for standardization; (2) convening of underrepresented groups, such as small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to understand their needs and provide the U.S. standards community a sense of their input (e.g., by relaying them to U.S. Technical Advisory Groups (TAG) and equivalent entities to broaden U.S. input into standardization); and (3) information sharing (e.g., via briefing documents describing current standardization activities in a focused format).

B. Workforce Capacity Building. This includes experiential learning workshops, simulation exercises, and boot camps to facilitate engagement of early- to mid-career professionals, and appropriately tailored workshops for decision-making executives, in international standardization by providing an orientation to the international standardization system ecosystem.

C. Collaborative Pilot Program in CETs. In collaboration with NIST, drive the acceleration of standardization readiness in selected CETs via NIST-industry engagement and collaboration in pre-standardization and metrology efforts.

D. Information and Data Sharing Hub. Develop and implement tools and information resources to enable the U.S. private sector to engage and influence international standardization more efficiently and effectively. These efforts may include purposeful convening opportunities (e.g., workshops), experiential learning, assessments/studies, standardization landscapes and roadmaps, mentorships, timely information about standards activities/ballots, and other tools and resources to support both engagement in standards development and use of standards information to provide competitive products to the global marketplace. These tools and resources will be developed so that they can be tailored, customized, or scaled to meet specific needs or priorities of a particular CET. Also, it is expected that the tools and resources be made available to stakeholders via a well-designed, user-friendly information and data sharing hub.

Open to all nongovernmental organizations (including, but not limited to academic institutions, trade associations, and professional societies), located in the United States or its territories. Eligible applicants include contractors that operate Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) where the applicant is permitted to receive federal financial assistance award funds. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply.

This program is a discretionary federal assistance award administered by DOC/NIST. No statutory formula or administrative allocation method applies. Funding amounts are determined based on merit review and agency discretion in accordance with the NOFO. There are no matching requirements and no Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirements.