Cyber Security Grants for Education

This blog was updated on December 28th, 2021.

Demand for cybersecurity professionals will grow unabated over the next decade according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, which is predicting a 33% increase in job growth for information security analysts between 2020 and 2030. The supply of qualified cybersecurity professionals, however, is not keeping up with the demand. The ISC² Global Information Security Workforce study found that the gap between qualified professionals and unfilled cybersecurity positions will reach 1.8 million by 2022. While this has many significant implications for all industries across the board, the takeaway for higher education institutions is that there is a growing need for graduates of certificate and degree programs in cybersecurity. The federal government has already drawn this conclusion and as a result, is taking steps to proactively address the shortage.

One of these steps is via cybersecurity grants for higher education, making the timing excellent for institutions of higher education to seek grants that can fund their cybersecurity learning programs and facilities. In fact, many higher education institutions have already begun using these sources of cybersecurity funding. Some of them are listed below:

While there are various avenues that an institution can take with respect to grant funding, Chief Academic Officers play a central role in initiating grant applications. They are also instrumental in prioritizing funding and supporting faculty so as to build viable cybersecurity programs that endure. In this post, we will review the main resources for higher education cybersecurity grants 2021.

Public Sources of Cybersecurity Grants for Education

National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C).

The purpose of this program is to promote higher education in cyber defense, cyber operations, and research, prepare a growing number of cybersecurity professionals, and reduce vulnerabilities in the nation’s networks.

Schools aspiring to gain the CAE designation will strengthen their program while also strengthening their graduates. The CAE designation also serves as a capacity-builder and powerful motivator for the growth of Information Security programs in higher education, while at the same time strengthening the nation’s infrastructure.

The CAE designation brings internal and external recognition along with opportunities for collaboration and funding. Internally, the designation captures the attention of the school’s senior administration, thus improving opportunities to increase the number of faculty positions, expand classroom/office space, and hire additional support staff. In addition, faculty across campus gain awareness of cybersecurity and its importance. Externally, the awareness of the importance of cybersecurity, and the excellence of the program recognized through the CAE designation is increased significantly among local politicians, Chamber of Commerce, local employers, and the K-12 community. In addition, opportunities for collaboration and funding increase significantly.

To receive a CAE-C designation, the institution must meet the rigorous requirements set forth by the sponsor of the program, the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA awards CAE-C designations to institutions that commit to producing cybersecurity professionals that will reduce vulnerabilities in our national infrastructure.

There are three types of designations schools can pursue Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD), Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research (CAE-R), and Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO). While the NSA does not provide funding to CAE-C designated institutions, once a school obtains one of these designations, it can compete for grants like the Department of Defense Cybersecurity Scholarship Program (DoD CySP) and can apply for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Scholarship for Service program. Schools are not limited to a single designation and are encouraged to pursue more than one.

All regionally accredited two-year, four-year, and graduate-level institutions in the United States are eligible to apply to become a CAE-C designated institution. An institution or program must apply for re-designation every five academic years.

For your institution to become a CAE-C, your organization needs to first contact the NCAE-C Program Management Office with your intention to apply for the designation. Once this information is received, you will need to fill out the National CAE in Cybersecurity Program Applicant Checklist, after which, you enter into the mentor/reviewer program housed by the CAE Candidates Program National Center located at Whatcom Community College. This process will take several months to complete. Upon successful completion of the program, your institution will be designated as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity.

To contact the NCAE-C Program Management Office, you can email the NCAE-C Program Management Office at CAEPMO@nsa.gov

Intelligence Community – Centers for Academic Excellence (IC-CAE)

Hosted by theIntelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence, the mission of IC-CAE is to cultivate enduring partnerships between the intelligence community and academia to prepare the next generation of intelligence community professionals.

The program provides grants to universities and colleges to enhance the recruitment and retention of an ethnically and culturally diverse intelligence community workforce with capabilities critical to the national security interest of the United States.

The IC CAE awards grants to colleges and universities to create a curriculum that illuminates the intelligence profession. Faculty are offered specialized training on subjects related to the IC and can take advantage of research opportunities to help the IC tackle difficult problems. All accredited four-year colleges and universities are eligible to apply, but the program emphasizes diversity in gender, race, and geography. Schools that form a consortium or otherwise enhance collaboration with under-resources schools are highly encouraged to participate.

The program is based on the authority of Executive Order 13355, Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community and managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence Community Human Capital Office of the Policy & Capabilities Directorate. While all accredited four-year colleges and universities in the United States are eligible, guiding legislation emphasizes increased IC workforce gender, ethnic, and geographic (rural) diversity.

College and Universities with IC CAE programs receive funding to support curriculum development, faculty professional development and research, student study abroad, and participation in intelligence-related conferences and seminars, and delivery of on-site intelligence-related workshops, simulations, and practical exercises.

Applications can be submitted through grants.gov.

PD-21-7980 – Advancing Innovation and Impact in Undergraduate STEM Education at Two-year Institutions of Higher Education

The purpose of this program is to take a targeted approach to advancing innovative and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education at two-year colleges. It also seeks to support systemic approaches to advance inclusive and equitable STEM education practices. The program will enable NSF to provide more support for STEM education initiatives at two-year colleges.

Projects will be expected to build on prior fundamental and/or applied research in STEM education and provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects as needed. Projects will also be expected to be research-informed and to result in field-tested outcomes and products that enhance STEM teaching and learning at two-year colleges.

Potential Outcomes of Interest: NSF is interested in projects with potential outcomes that include but are not limited to 1) making systemic improvements in STEM education; 2) promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; 3) mitigating the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on two-year colleges.

Potential Approaches of Interest: Of particular interest are projects that aim to advance undergraduate STEM education by: improving student outcomes in foundational STEM courses; broadening and/or creating new STEM curricula; providing STEM students with authentic research experiences, internships, and other experiential learning opportunities; increasing access to high-quality STEM education through new technologies; re- or up-skilling incumbent workers for new STEM jobs; building STEM career and seamless transfer pathways; developing novel mechanisms to identify talent and recruit into STEM programs.

STEM Disciplines: In addition to proposals in traditional STEM fields at two-year colleges, NSF particularly encourages submissions to the disciplines of national priority such as quantum information science, artificial intelligence, robotics, process engineering, and cybersecurity.

Program Contacts:

Pushpa Ramakrishna pusramak@nsf.gov (703) 292-2943

Virginia C. Carter vccarter@nsf.gov (703) 292-4651

Ellen M. Carpenter elcarpen@nsf.gov (703) 292-5104

Michael J. Davis mdavis@nsf.gov (703) 292-7166

Advanced Technological Education (ATE)

The ATE program focuses on two-year institutions of higher education with the goal of supporting the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation’s economy. It involves partnerships between academic institutions (grades 7-12, IHEs), industry, and economic development agencies to promote improvement in the education of science and engineering technicians at the undergraduate and secondary institution school levels. The ATE program supports curriculum development; professional development of college faculty and secondary school teachers; career pathways; and other activities. The program invites applied research proposals that advance the knowledge base related to technician education. Projects are required to be faculty-driven and courses and programs must be credit-bearing, although materials developed may also be used for incumbent worker education.

The ATE program encourages partnerships with other entities that may impact technician education such as the following examples:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs) (http://www.nist.gov/mep/index.cfm) as applicable to support technician education programs and the industries they serve;
Manufacturing USA Institutes (https://manufacturing.gov/) addressing workforce development issues (also see DCL NSF 16-007); and
NSF Industry University Cooperative Research Centers Program (I/UCRC) awardees (http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/iucrc/) (also see DCL NSF 21-076).

The ATE program encourages proposals from Minority Serving Institutions as well as other institutions that support the recruitment, retention, and completion (certificate, degree, program) of groups historically underrepresented in STEM in technician education programs that award associate degrees. NSF is particularly interested in proposals from all types of Minority Serving Institutions (including Hispanic Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions) where groups historically underrepresented in STEM are showing an increased interest in advanced technology careers.

Program Contacts:

Corby Hovis, telephone: (703)292-4625, email: chovis@nsf.gov
Paul Tymann: (703) 292-2832 e-mail: ptymann@nsf.gov

Full proposal deadlines (due by 5 p.m. submitter’s local time):

October 06, 2022 (for funding for 2023)

October 05, 2023 (for funding for 2024)

Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC)

The goals of the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program are aligned with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan (RDSP) and the National Privacy Research Strategy (NPRS) to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy. The NPRS, which complements the RDSP, identifies a framework for privacy research, anchored in characterizing privacy expectations, understanding privacy violations, engineering privacy-protecting systems, and recovering from privacy violations. In alignment with the objectives in both strategic plans, the SaTC program takes an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and holistic approach to cybersecurity research, development, and education, and encourages the transition of promising research ideas into practice. The RDSP identified six areas critical to successful cybersecurity R&D:

scientific foundations;
risk management;
human aspects;
transitioning successful research into practice;
workforce development; and
enhancing the research infrastructure.

The SaTC program welcomes proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy and draw on expertise in one or more of these areas: computing, communication, and information sciences; engineering; economics; education; mathematics; statistics; and social and behavioral sciences. Proposals that advance the field of cybersecurity and privacy within a single discipline or interdisciplinary efforts that span multiple disciplines are both encouraged.

Proposals must be made in one of the following areas:

Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace core research (CORE) Designation
Transition to Practice (TTP) Designation
Cybersecurity Education (EDU) Designation

Proposals must be made in one of the following areas:

Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace core research (CORE) Designation

The scope of the SaTC core research program is broad and interdisciplinary and welcomes foundational research on security and privacy from researchers in computer science, engineering, mathematics, and social, behavioral, and economic sciences. SaTC views cybersecurity as a socio-technical challenge and encourages proposals that advance the field of cybersecurity within a single discipline or multiple disciplines.

This track focuses only on research directly supporting a safe, secure, resilient, and trustworthy cyberspace, conducted ethically with the highest scientific standards. Of special interest are proposals that are transformative, forward-looking, and offer innovative or clean-slate approaches that provide defenders a distinct advantage. Proposals whose security science exposes underlying principles having predictive value that extends across different security domains are especially encouraged. The program discourages proposals that address a sole vulnerability or device without advancing security science or considering the broader consequences of the proposed remedy. The SaTC program likewise discourages research focused primarily on the design and development of offensive techniques for exploiting vulnerabilities of systems that could be harmful to the operation of existing cyberinfrastructure.

Some specific research topics of interest for CORE proposals are included in the full program solicitation.

Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace Core Research (CORE) Designation
Transition to Practice (TTP) Designation
Cybersecurity Education (EDU) Designation
Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC)

Proposals submitted to the EDU designation are expected to leverage successful results from previous and current basic research in cybersecurity and research on student learning, both in terms of intellectual merit and broader impacts, to address the challenge of expanding existing educational opportunities and resources in cybersecurity. This may include, but is not limited to, the following efforts:

Conduct research that advances improvements in teaching and student learning in cybersecurity;
Based on the results of basic research in cybersecurity, define a cybersecurity body of knowledge and establish curricular activities for new courses, degree programs, and educational pathways leading to wide dissemination and adoption
Investigate approaches to make cybersecurity education and workforce development broadly diverse and inclusive, including the effects of instructional strategies on the culture of the STEM classroom
Design and implement graduate programs to produce future faculty and cybersecurity professionals with research expertise in critical areas, such as the secure use of AI, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and emerging wireless technologies
Improve teaching methods for delivering cybersecurity content to K-12 students that promote correct and safe online behavior, and understanding of the foundational principles of cybersecurity
Develop and implement activities to help K-12 teachers integrate cybersecurity into formal and informal learning settings
Support institutional collaborations between community colleges and four-year colleges and universities
Develop educational approaches or pathways to foster industry-relevant skills for cybersecurity jobs of the future
Develop effective evidence-based co-curricular activities for students studying cybersecurity at the K-12, undergraduate, or graduate level;
and Evaluate the effectiveness of cybersecurity competitions and other engagement, outreach, and retention activities

SaTC also states that the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has long been committed to Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC). The underrepresentation of many groups in computing, including women, Blacks and African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, and persons with disabilities, deprives large segments of the population with the opportunity to be creators of technology, and it deprives the computing ecosystem of their potentially valuable contributions. Specifically, each Medium project with a lead or non-lead organization (department, school, or institute) that primarily carries out research and education in computer science, computer engineering, information science, and/or other closely related field, must, at the time of submission, include a BPC plan.

A meaningful BPC plan can answer positively to the following five elements:

Context: Does the plan describe a goal using institutional or local data?
Intended population(s): Does the plan identify the characteristics of participants from an underrepresented group listed above, including school level (e.g.,. African American undergraduates or female high-school students)?
Strategy: Does the plan describe activities that address the goal(s) and intended population(s)? Is there a clear role for each PI and co-PI?
Preparation: Does the plan describe how the PI is prepared (or will prepare or collaborate) to do the proposed work?
Measurement: Is there a plan to measure the outcome(s) of the activities?

Program Contacts:

Nina Amla – namla@nsf.gov – Tel – (703) 292-8910 – URL – https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504709

Deadlines:

Small, medium, and EDU proposals continue to have no deadlines; Large proposals have a deadline. To get the latest information about program deadlines, visit the NSF website at https://www/nsf/gov

Private Sources of Grants

Lumina Foundation

Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Its long-standing mission is to ensure that 60% of working-age adults have college degrees, certificates, industry certifications, and other credentials of value by 2025. The foundation priorities are initiatives that develop competency-based learning and help students gain the knowledge and experience they need to join a skilled workforce. Higher education institutions can definitely benefit from a cybersecurity skills development platform as it offers competency-based skills development and experiential learning opportunities rather than a book and lecture format that is traditionally offered.

To learn more about cyber security grants for education to support your cybersecurity program, contact Candace Brandt at the Lumina Foundation.

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is the 12th-largest private foundation in the United States, has an endowment of $7.0 billion, and provides approximately $260 million annually in grants and impact investments. The University of California, Berkely, UC San Diego, the University of Washington have all received cybersecurity-related funding from the MacArthur Foundation.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s focus on postsecondary success is to ensure that everyone in the U.S. can learn, grow, and get ahead regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or family income. The foundation believes that solutions for increasing student success rates and ensuring that all students receive a high-quality educational experience that is tailored to their needs, academic abilities, and career goals include technology-enabled teaching and student advising tools as well as systems that gather and analyze data that can help institutions improve their performance and student outcomes.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does not usually accept unsolicited requests for funding, so check out their ‘How We Work’ page.

Moving Ahead After the Grant

In addition to securing cybersecurity grants for education, higher education institutions need to be strategic about building degree programs that deliver highly valuable skills development so that they attract the attention of students and employers. Moreover, a highly realistic, versatile cyber range, capable of running numerous attack scenarios and simulating various types of networks, will also be able to generate substantial income from selling professional training sessions and programs to the private sector.

For colleges and universities seeking to build a leading cyber skills development and assessment program that covers the entire cyber skilling spectrum and would like assistance with writing a grant proposal for a cybersecurity program at your institution, feel free to reach out to us. We will be happy to help you with the process.