Standards Coordination Office Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program (SCO CD CAP) | 2023 NIST SCOCD 01

Opportunity Information: Apply for 2023 NIST SCOCD 01

The Standards Coordination Office Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program (SCO CD CAP) is a discretionary federal funding opportunity run by the Department of Commerce through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), specifically NIST's Standards Coordination Office. It is offered under Funding Opportunity Number 2023 NIST SCOCD 01 and is cataloged under CFDA 11.620. The program uses a cooperative agreement as the funding instrument, which generally means the awardees should expect active involvement from NIST during the project (for example, collaboration on technical direction, alignment with program goals, and coordination on deliverables), rather than a hands-off grant relationship.

The core purpose of the program is educational capacity building around documentary standards and the standardization ecosystem. NIST is seeking applicants who can develop or enhance undergraduate and/or graduate-level curricula that intentionally embed standards-related content into academic and training materials. The opportunity is not limited to creating full standalone courses; it explicitly includes the development of seminars, instructional modules that can be inserted into existing classes, complete courses, and broader learning resources. The emphasis is on weaving in practical and conceptual knowledge about documentary standards, how standards are developed, and how standardization works in real-world settings, with the broader goal of strengthening student learning and awareness of standards as part of science, engineering, technology, and related professional fields.

The funded work is positioned within the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category, but the deliverables are fundamentally curriculum and learning-resource oriented rather than laboratory research. Successful projects would likely translate the often opaque world of standards into teachable content, potentially covering topics such as what documentary standards are, why they matter for innovation and market access, how standards bodies and committees operate, how consensus processes work, and how standards intersect with regulation, conformity assessment, measurement, safety, cybersecurity, and quality systems, depending on the discipline and level of instruction.

In terms of scale and award structure, NIST anticipated making up to eight awards under this announcement. The listed award ceiling is shown as 0, which typically indicates the ceiling was not specified in the summary data and would normally be clarified in the full funding opportunity announcement or related program documents. Eligibility is listed broadly as "Others," with the note that applicants must consult the additional eligibility guidance in the full text; in practice, opportunities like this often include universities, colleges, nonprofit organizations, and potentially other institutions able to design and deliver higher-education curricula.

The solicitation was created on April 5, 2023, with an original application deadline of June 4, 2023. Overall, SCO CD CAP is best understood as a NIST partnership mechanism intended to increase the presence and quality of standards education in higher education, producing reusable teaching materials and curricular structures that help students understand how documentary standards are created and used, and why standardization is a foundational part of modern technology and commerce.

• The Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Standards Coordination Office Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program (SCO CD CAP)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 11.620.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 05, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 04, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 2023 NIST SCOCD 01

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