Collaborate with Us: Technical Contributions
As a trusted convener of cybersecurity experts, the NCCoE offers many ways to get involved and shape our work. Collaboration opportunities include both formal and informal mechanisms, designed to enable organizations to share challenges and solutions with the NCCoE.
Formal Project Collaborators
Organizations can collaborate with the NCCoE by signing a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to provide hardware, software, and/or expertise to support a project. Collaborators work together to demonstrate technology and develop supporting implementation guides and resources to help organizations understand how to design and deploy their own solutions.
How to become a formal collaborator:
The NCCoE uses a formal process to solicit collaborators for its projects. Projects with formal collaborators will announce a collaboration opportunity in the Federal Register. The Federal Register Notice (FRN) includes the project’s technical requirements and describes the process for interested organizations to submit interest in participation. Interested organizations can submit a letter of interest (LOI) that identifies the products, technologies, and engineering expertise being offered to support the project. NIST evaluates each LOI on a first-come, first-served basis and determines technical acceptability based on fit with the project’s scope and satisfaction of the project’s technical requirements.
- Sign up for alerts from us and watch the Federal Register for calls for participation.
- Selected organizations are required to sign a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). See an example CRADA.
- Federal agencies interested in supporting the NCCoE’s work can sign CRADA agreements or establish interagency agreements to support work at the NCCoE.
Formal NCCoE Partners
The National Cybersecurity Excellence Partnership (NCEP) program is an ongoing collaborative partnership between U.S. companies and NIST’s NCCoE to advance the state of cybersecurity practices.
Partners provide technical input to help the NCCoE address emerging cybersecurity challenges and trends, collaborate to identify new projects, and gain insights from the NCCoE’s work. Partners also pledge to provide hardware, software and/or expertise to support our projects. In addition to contributing equipment and other products to the NCCoE’s test environments, companies may designate guest researchers to work at the center, in person or remotely.
How to become an NCCoE Partner:
Complete the NCEP interest form and describe the expected contributions from the organization to support the NCCoE. Interested organizations are encouraged to support individual NCCoE projects before joining the NCEP program. NIST evaluates requests for organizations to become NCEP partners based on their fit with the NCCoE’s mission and project portfolio. Organizations selected to join the NCEP program will be required to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU). For more information, review the Federal Register notice.
Informal Collaboration Opportunities
Individuals and organizations are encouraged to actively engage with the NCCoE to shape our priorities and provide feedback on our projects. Here are some ways to get involved:
- Events: The NCCoE hosts a variety of in-person and virtual events to solicit input on our work and raise awareness of cybersecurity best practices. Individuals can join the NCCoE’s events to hear directly from cybersecurity experts and learn more about the NCCoE’s work.
- Communities of Interest: Individuals can join Communities of Interest (COIs) to receive updates on NCCoE projects and provide feedback and ideas to inform NCCoE projects and publications.
- Public Comments: As part of our commitment to openness and transparency, all our resources are published for public comment. We encourage everyone to share their feedback, perspectives, and expertise during open comment periods.
- See a list of projects currently soliciting comments on resources
