FY 2026 Strengthening Talent, Research, Innovation and Vital Engagement (STRIVE) Program — Historical Reference

FY 2026 Strengthening Talent, Research, Innovation and Vital Engagement (STRIVE) Program — Historical Reference

This page is a historical reference, not an open funding call. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) published the FY 2026 Strengthening Talent, Research, Innovation and Vital Engagement (STRIVE) Program as a new cooperative agreement opportunity. The official listing records an application deadline of June 10, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time and now records the opportunity as archived on July 10, 2026. The deadline has passed. The verified official listing and the linked Notice of Funding Opportunity do not announce a later STRIVE cycle or replacement application date, so this entry keeps the completed cycle’s real deadline and does not invent a new one.

The official source is the Grants.gov/Simpler Grants opportunity record maintained for ECA, with the full NOFO issued by the U.S. Department of State. It identifies funding opportunity number DFOP0018335, Assistance Listing number 19.009, one anticipated award, and an award amount of approximately $2,000,000. The planned period of performance was up to 48 months, subject to funding availability and the terms of the eventual award. The NOFO listed an anticipated award date of September 15, 2026, but that was a planned date in the solicitation, not evidence that an award was made or that applications remain possible.

Verified status and key facts

The award was designed for a lead organization that could run a national subaward program and coordinate international higher-education partnerships. It was not a direct scholarship or individual travel grant. A student, researcher, or individual college could not use this record as a personal application route. The intended prime recipient would administer the program in consultation with ECA and would make downstream resources available to accredited U.S. colleges and universities.

What STRIVE was intended to support

The NOFO describes three connected objectives. First, the program sought to increase the number of U.S. higher-education institutions developing international partnerships that support U.S. global leadership and align academic innovation with U.S. priorities. The description also connects those partnerships with countering malign influence in foreign higher-education systems.

Second, STRIVE aimed to increase the number of U.S. undergraduate and graduate students studying, interning, apprenticing, or researching abroad in programs that prepare them to meet domestic labor needs. The relevant experiences were meant to build knowledge, skills, and relationships connected to U.S. commercial and security interests. Third, the program sought to increase the strategic locations in which those students engage abroad, on the theory that sustained contact among students, institutions, and foreign publics can support diplomatic, economic, security, and trade relationships.

The work had two main components:

1. Small Grants Competition and Oversight. The recipient was expected to run at least one open, merit-based competition resulting in at least 25 subawards to accredited U.S. colleges and universities. Those subawards could develop credit-bearing study, internship, apprenticeship, and/or research-abroad activities for U.S. undergraduate and/or graduate students. The prime recipient would monitor and support subawardees, help them build institutional capacity, and seek efficiencies so that as much funding as possible reached the subawards.
2. Higher Education Partnerships Initiative. The recipient was expected to create a cohesive series of engagements that fostered partnerships between U.S. and global higher-education institutions. The partnerships were intended to lead to study, internship, apprenticeship, and/or research exchanges in fields important to U.S. commercial and security interests. The NOFO names artificial intelligence and supercomputing, critical minerals, emerging technologies and innovations, and energy as possible fields, while stating that the final focus would be determined in consultation with ECA. The initiative was to include virtual and/or in-person seminars open to U.S. and foreign institutions, plus an in-person forum alongside a major industry conference for approximately 40 U.S. and foreign higher-education leaders.

The program therefore combined grant administration, institutional partnership work, and student mobility. A proposal centered only on sending students abroad, without a credible national competition and oversight model, would not have matched the structure described in the NOFO.

Eligibility and compliance requirements

The official NOFO lists the following eligible applicant categories:

• U.S. not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society or non-governmental organizations.
• U.S. not-for-profit public and private educational institutions.

Every applicant needed a Unique Entity Identifier issued through SAM.gov and a valid SAM.gov registration. Because ECA anticipated an award of approximately $2,000,000, the notice also required applicants seeking awards above $130,000 to demonstrate at least four years of experience conducting international exchanges. That experience requirement was material to this competition; it was not enough to describe general education or grantmaking experience without showing relevant international-exchange work.

The NOFO states that there was no minimum or maximum percentage of cost sharing. It also states that only one proposal from each applicant organization would be considered. If more than one submission appeared in Grants.gov, ECA would review the submission made closest in time to the deadline as the one proposal for that legal applicant organization. Organizations with current ECA awards were instructed to discuss awards that would remain open at the anticipated start of the performance period. Organizations without current ECA awards were directed to follow the additional information in the Proposal Submission Instructions.

These requirements matter for interpreting the closed cycle. The page should not be read as a general invitation for any nonprofit, individual student, or unaffiliated international organization to apply. The source’s eligibility language is specific to U.S. not-for-profit applicants and U.S. not-for-profit public or private educational institutions, with federal registration, experience, and submission requirements layered on top.

Application contents and completed submission process

There is no remaining application window for this cycle. The following records the process described in the official NOFO so that the historical entry remains useful without implying that a late application can be filed:

1. Read the complete NOFO and Proposal Submission Instructions. Applicants needed to check the program purpose, eligibility rules, required forms, review information, and post-award obligations before preparing a response.
2. Confirm organizational eligibility. The applicant needed to fit one of the U.S. not-for-profit categories, have the required international-exchange experience for an award of this size, and be able to maintain the required federal registrations.
3. Check SAM.gov and Grants.gov registration. The applicant needed a UEI and valid SAM.gov registration. The NOFO warned that the registration process could take up to four weeks, so organizations were told to check their status well before the closing date. Grants.gov was the submission system named by the source.
4. Prepare the required package. The proposal had to contain an SF-424, executive summary, proposal narrative, budget using SF-424A, detailed line-item budget, and budget narrative. The narrative also needed to explain the national small-grants competition, oversight and support for subawardees, partnership engagements, strategic fields and locations, staffing, monitoring, and intended outcomes.
5. Submit one complete application through Grants.gov. The deadline was Wednesday, June 10, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time in Washington, DC. The NOFO states that the full application had to be uploaded by that time, that there were no exceptions, and that applications uploaded after the deadline would be automatically rejected by Grants.gov as technically ineligible.
6. Retain the Grants.gov receipt. The submission system generated an electronic date/time stamp, acknowledgement, and tracking number for a successful transmission. The applicant’s authorized organization representative received the submission record and needed to watch for transmission errors.

The required package reflects the scale of the award. This was a cooperative agreement for a program operator, not a short concept note for a small travel grant. The budget needed to show how the applicant would fund competition administration, subaward support, partnership programming, monitoring, staffing, and other allowable activities while maximizing the amount directed to subawards.

How to use this page now

Use this entry to understand the FY 2026 solicitation, compare its design with future ECA announcements, or prepare institutional records about the closed call. Do not use the June 10, 2026 deadline as a live submission date. Do not treat the anticipated September 15, 2026 award date as a guarantee of funding, and do not assume that the reference to possible renewal for two additional consecutive fiscal years creates a new application opportunity. The NOFO says that renewal was subject to satisfactory implementation and availability of funds, and it described a future open competition rather than publishing a new deadline in this record.

The distinction between the prime award and the subawards is especially important. The FY 2026 opportunity invited one lead recipient to establish and oversee a national competition. The colleges and universities that might later have received subawards were not the direct applicants for this particular prime opportunity. Their possible future participation would have depended on a competition run by the selected recipient, the recipient’s rules, and the terms of the resulting award. Nothing on the archived listing confirms a subaward round or a current invitation to institutions.

For future monitoring, the official ECA and Grants.gov records are the appropriate places to check for a new STRIVE announcement. A later notice could change the funding amount, performance period, eligible applicant categories, required experience, strategic fields, number of subawards, forms, or deadline. Those details should not be copied from this archive entry into a future application. Until a new official notice appears, this page should remain a record of the closed FY 2026 cycle.

Official source

• FY 2026 STRIVE opportunity listing
• FY 2026 STRIVE Notice of Funding Opportunity

The official listing names the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs as the agency and links the full NOFO. It records the opportunity as archived, while the NOFO supplies the closed deadline, funding amount, eligibility rules, required contents, and Grants.gov submission instructions. No later STRIVE application date is confirmed in those official materials.