Assistance program
Manufacturing Extension Partnership
$1.1 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Commerce, Department of
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements;Dissemination of Technical Information
- CFDA number
- 11.611
- What it does
- Enhance competitiveness, productivity, and technological performance in United States manufacturing. Establish, maintain, and support Manufacturing Extension Centers and services, the functions of which are to improve the competitiveness of firms by accelerating the usage of appropriate manufacturing technology by smaller U.S. based manufacturing firms, and partner with the States in developing such technical assistance programs and services for their manufacturing base.
- Who benefits
- Beneficiary shall be U.S.-based manufacturing firms, especially smaller companies.
- Who applies
- For MEP Center projects under 15 U.S.C. § 278k, eligible applicants shall be U.S.Â-based nonprofit institutions or organizations or a consortium thereof; institutions of higher education; or a State, U.S. territory, local or tribal government. Applicants generally must contribute at least 50 percent of the proposed service's capital, annual operating and maintenance costs. For competitive awards under 15 U.S.C. § 278k-1, eligible applicants are existing MEP Centers. For extension service planning and pilot services agreements under 15 U.S.C. § 278l, eligible applicants shall be State governments or State- affiliated nonprofit organizations. For multiÂstate regional planning and pilot services agreements, eligible applicants shall be State and local governments, representing either themselves or a consortium of States, or appropriate private or public nonprofit organizations, operating on behalf of a consortium of States or as a representative of States.
- Authorized by
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Act, 15 U.S.C. § 271 et seq., as amended by the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (AICA), Public Law 114-329
- 15 U.S.C. § 278k-1
- 15 U.S.C. § 278l
- 42 U.S.C. § Ch. 163 Subch. II
- Program site
- http://www.mep.nist.gov ↗
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