The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 charged NIST's PSCR Division with performing critical public safety communications research and development during a 10-year period.  September 30, 2022 marked the close out of the $300 million PSCR received from that legislation and the Public Safety Trust Fund.

I would like to thank all of our public safety, industry, and academic partners; our grantees and prize challenge participants; and all of our staff, past and present.  None of the work PSCR has accomplished over the past decade would have been possible without you, and we can now proudly announce that we successfully leveraged 99.99% of the $300 million that was granted to us.

At the end of this funding period, we celebrate the culmination of hard work this past decade has brought.  On top of the incredible work performed by NIST staff, PSCR produced 19 prize challenge competitions and awarded 207 teams, as well as $89.7 million in grant funding opportunities for extramural research.

To be clear, this is not the end of PSCR’s work. We will continue our mission of advancing communications technology to ensure that public safety can more effectively protect lives and property.

Thank you for all of your support along the way, and I hope you'll continue to stay involved.  We still need your help to succeed in our mission and pull the future forward.

I look forward to continuing our work together.

Dereck Orr
PSCR Division Chief