Assistance program
Educational Partnership Program
$122.6 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Commerce, Department of
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements
- CFDA number
- 11.481
- What it does
- To continue development of education, research, policy and natural resource management programs aimed at increasing education, training and graduation rates in NOAA mission STEM disciplines at Minority Serving Institutions. All EPP/MSI program components are awarded through national competitive processes. Partnerships and capacity building are achieved through collaboration with NOAA scientists and managers and with the use of NOAA facilities and resources in atmospheric, oceanic, environmental sciences, and remote sensing technologies.
- Who benefits
- The benefits to the Nation are an increased number of academic institutions capable of providing services and products in support of the agency's mission to describe and predict changes in the environment, and to conserve and manage the nation's coastal and marine resources to ensure sustainable economic opportunities. Collaboration among NOAA and academic institutions will increase the number of trained professionals in NOAA-related sciences and will also lead to a larger number of institutions participating in collaborative research and co-management of the nation's natural resources with State, local and tribal governments.
- Who applies
- Applicants are designated as minority serving institutions by the United States Department of Education list of minority serving institutions. Non-minority institutions may also participate in this program when partnered with a minority serving institution. Lead institutions applying to become Cooperative Science Center must have a Ph.D. degree program in the science or technology disciplines (ocean, marine and environmental sciences and remote sensing technology) that directly supports NOAA mission.
- Authorized by
- 33 U.S.C. § 893 a(a)
- 15 U.S.C. § 1540
- 33 U.S.C. § 893a
- Program site
- https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/epp-msi ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments