Compete where your designations and research scale give you an advantage.
Skip the longshots that drain a small office.
Name your institution and our AI reads it, checks every federal program against the real eligibility rules, and hands back a ranked shortlist scored on eligibility, strategic fit, and competitive position — which designations let you in, how your research spending ranks against schools like yours (your HERD percentile), and the EPSCoR and Title III programs others miss.
A read your VP for Research and your most skeptical faculty lead can both stand behind. The AI does the work. The facts come from the government — not the AI's memory.
- Trial3 runs · 1 seat · no card
- Scored32 institution-eligible programs
- PositionHERD percentile vs Carnegie peers
What it does
Federal-funding intelligence for degree-granting institutions.
Name your institution and our AI reads it, checks 32 federal programs open to institutions against the real eligibility rules, and hands back a ranked shortlist scored on eligibility, strategic fit, and competitive position — which designations let you in, how you rank against schools like yours, and where you lean too heavily on one agency. Every program is checked against the actual law, with the official source and date behind it.
A shaky federal cycle. A small office.
When the ground shifts, spreading your bets is the defense.
Federal funding in 2025-26 is moving fast, and most research offices don't have a spare person to keep up. Leaning heavily on one agency looked like strength last year and looks like risk this year. The real question isn't “what else can we apply to” — it's “where are we over-exposed, and where do our designations and research size still give us a real shot?”
Strategic Pursuit answers that with proof you can check: where you lean too hard on one agency, the openings your standing actually reaches, and the longshots a small office should pass on before it spends one of its limited submission slots.
Every designation cites its statute.
Eligibility you can defend to your most skeptical faculty.
Junk matches come from keyword search dressed up as a recommendation. Strategic Pursuit checks the actual eligibility rules written into the law, and every designation below shows the exact statute behind it when you open it.
Open a chip to read its statute
- Historically Black College or University — per HEA §322(2) (20 U.S.C. §1061(2)). Established before 1964 with a principal mission of educating Black Americans.
- Hispanic-Serving Institution — per Title V §502(a)(5) of the Higher Education Act. At least 25% Hispanic full-time-equivalent undergraduate enrollment.
- Tribal College or University — per HEA §316. Formally controlled or chartered by one or more federally recognized tribes.
- Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution — at least 10% AANAPI undergraduate enrollment with the statutory low-income share.
- Predominantly Black Institution — at least 40% Black-American enrollment and the statutory needs-based and degree-completion criteria.
- 1862 Morrill Land-Grant institution — established under the first Morrill Act (7 U.S.C. §301 et seq.).
- 1890 Morrill Land-Grant institution (historically Black) — established under the second Morrill Act of 1890.
- 1994 Tribal Land-Grant institution — designated under the Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994 (7 U.S.C. §301 note).
When a program requires a designation, that's a hard rule the tool checks — not the AI guessing. If your institution doesn't hold it, the program is marked ineligible, plainly.
Position, not just a number.
See your research scale where it actually matters — against your true peers.
A single research-spending number tells you little on its own. Where you stand against schools like yours tells you where you can compete. Strategic Pursuit shows your research spending over time and how it ranks against your true peer group — the bottom quarter, the middle, and the top quarter (HERD is the official NSF survey of university research spending; Carnegie groups schools by type so the comparison is fair). So your VP for Research walks into a meeting knowing whether you're in a strong spot for a given program, or reaching.
Percentile plaque · federal share of R&D
Example only. Where your institution's HERD data isn't loaded yet, the panel says so — it never makes up a ranking.
Where your standing reaches and others don't.
The EPSCoR and Title III white space your designations open.
Some of the best openings a small office has are the programs its peers can't even enter. Strategic Pursuit finds the EPSCoR / IDeA and Title III programs (set aside for states and schools that haven't had much federal research money, or for specific designations) where your state or your designation gives you a real edge — and warns you, before you spend one of your limited submission slots, about the longshot where a much larger, well-funded school would beat you out.
It tells your faculty where they don't have a real shot, just as plainly as where they do.
We hold the same zero-tolerance line you do.
Real program numbers. Real deadlines. Never a made-up grant.
Eligibility is decided by clear rules, not by the AI. The facts — program numbers, deadlines, designations, research spending, your federal awards by agency, subawards, and student outcomes — are pulled straight from official government sources after the AI does its read, never from its memory. Anything we can't re-check recently gets flagged or moved down instead of shown as fact. The faculty member who can say no to a bad match is exactly who we built the proof for.
We'll be straight with you. Our institution data is still filling in.
It comes before the tools you already use.
It complements Cayuse, Kuali, and InfoEd. It doesn't compete with them.
Those are the systems where you manage proposals and compliance. Strategic Pursuit comes earlier — it tells you which opportunities are even worth putting into those systems in the first place. It isn't another home for your proposal data; it's the clear call on where your institution can compete.
Programs your institution can apply for
32 federal programs your institution can apply for, checked on every report.
From NSF EPSCoR and CAREER and the capacity-building lines for HSIs (Hispanic-Serving Institutions), Tribal colleges, and HBCUs, to NIH R01/R15/RCMI grants, Department of Education Title III/V, USDA NIFA 1890 capacity grants, Department of Energy and Department of Defense research, IMLS, and NEH humanities programs. For each one, our AI checks the program's real eligibility rules against your institution's designations, Carnegie classification, and research footprint, drawn from a catalog of 205 federal programs across more than two dozen federal agencies.
- 13Programs
U.S. Department of Education
- 5Programs
National Science Foundation
- 4Programs
National Institutes of Health
- 4Programs
U.S. Department of Agriculture — National Institute of Food and Agriculture
- 3Programs
National Endowment for the Humanities
- 1Programs
Department of Energy
- 1Programs
U.S. Department of Defense
- 1Programs
Institute of Museum and Library Services
New programs land in the catalog as IIJA / IRA / annual appropriations shift — every workspace picks up the update at the next dossier run, no version bump required.
Find your funding
Find your institution's funding by designation, agency, or mission.
By designation
By mission & persona
Tell the AI what your research is for.
Eight focus areas, scored to your mission.
When you name your institution, you pick the focus areas that matter to you. The AI scores and ranks programs against the ones you choose.
- STEM research
- Health research
- Humanities & arts
- Workforce & career-technical education
- Student success
- Capacity building — minority-serving
- Capacity building — land-grant
- Infrastructure & facilities
Eight focus areas built for institutions — not the city ones. The tool speaks your language, not a city's.
Built to be checked. Built to stay in bounds.
Where the data comes from — and the data we will never touch.
Our sources · refreshed every week
NSF HERD · NIH RePORTER · NSF Award Search · NCES College Scorecard · IPEDS · OPE designations · FFATA subawards · Grants.gov
If a number can't be re-checked recently, we flag it or move it down — we don't pass it off as fact. Programs that have ended are never shown.
We use only publicly posted FSA aggregate data — no NSLDS, no student-level records.
FAQ
What a sponsored-programs office asks before it trusts a tool.
A read your VP for Research and your most skeptical faculty can both stand behind.
Name your institution and the AI hands back where your designations and research size give you a real, defensible advantage — and where to walk away — with the official source behind every number.