The National Science Foundation is an independent Federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $8.3 billion (FY 2022). NSF funds reach all 50 states by issuing nearly 12,000 new grants to individuals, small groups, and research centers. Many of the NSF core programs support work on coral reef research, such as Biological Oceanography,  Chemical Oceanography, Marine Geology and Geophysics, and Physical Oceanography all in the Ocean Sciences Division of the Geosciences directorate. Research on corals and other specific reef organisms has also been supported by the Evolutionary Processes, Integrative Organismal Systems, Systematics and Biodiversity Sciences, and other programs in the Biological Sciences Directorate. Additional integrative projects have previously been funded through special programs, for example Biodiversity on a Changing Plant, Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases, Coastlines and People, Long-term Ecological Research, and the Convergence Accelerator Track E: Networked Blue Economy.