The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently launched its new NSF Tech Accelerators initiative to help transform research discoveries into scalable, market-ready technologies that strengthen U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. The program establishes a new model for accelerating deep-tech innovation by combining federal investment, commercialization expertise, and ecosystem partnerships to help promising technologies move from the laboratory to the marketplace.
As part of this launch, NSF’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) required a modern grants management capability capable of supporting the speed, scale, and complexity of the Tech Accelerators program. Working in partnership, NSF, ServiceNow, and iTech AG rapidly deployed a grants management solution built on the ServiceNow Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS) platform to support program operations, oversight, evaluation, and reporting.
Supporting Innovation at Scale
The Tech Accelerators initiative builds on NSF’s mission to strengthen the U.S. innovation ecosystem by helping researchers, entrepreneurs, and technology innovators overcome commercialization barriers. These programs require coordination across large funding portfolios, evaluation processes, stakeholder engagement, and performance reporting spanning diverse organizations and regions.
To support these objectives, the solution leveraged ServiceNow’s low-code platform capabilities and iTech AG’s GrantsKit360 to create a unified grants management environment. Data and processes previously managed across multiple systems, including Salesforce and SharePoint, were integrated into a single platform designed to improve visibility, transparency, and operational efficiency.
The implementation followed an agile delivery approach, beginning with a minimum viable product and expanding into a comprehensive grants lifecycle management solution aligned to NSF’s program timeline.
Delivering Mission Outcomes Faster
The collaborative effort produced significant results, including:
- Operational readiness achieved within 35 days to support initial program activities.
- Expansion to full grants lifecycle capabilities, including evaluation, award, oversight, and reporting processes, within 60 days.
- Support for oversight and reporting of more than $450 million in grant funding investments.
- Implementation of data segmentation and access controls that provide national consistency while enabling regional flexibility for accelerator organizations.
- Configuration of a scalable Grants Management Playbook that can be reused to accelerate future grant program deployments.
Advancing the Future of Federal Grants Management
The project reflects close collaboration between NSF, iTech AG, and ServiceNow to apply modern grants management practices at scale. As a design-build partner supporting ServiceNow’s Public Sector Digital Services grants capabilities, iTech AG worked alongside ServiceNow and NSF stakeholders to rapidly operationalize mission requirements while helping establish repeatable implementation patterns for future grant programs.
The approach demonstrates how federal agencies can leverage low-code platforms, reusable delivery frameworks, and commercial best practices to accelerate mission outcomes while maintaining governance, transparency, and accountability.
Looking Ahead
The NSF Tech Accelerators initiative marks a significant step in strengthening the nation’s ability to transform research investments into economic impact. By combining innovative program models with modern digital platforms, NSF is creating new pathways to accelerate technology commercialization, support entrepreneurs, and advance U.S. leadership in critical technology sectors.