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NSF Proposals and Policies

Recent NSF Policy Additions and Revisions

These and other NSF policies may be found on the NSF Policy Office webpage.

  • NSF project reporting moving from FASTLane to Research.gov (effective 1/1/2013). Beginning in January 2013, all NSF reports must be prepared, submitted and reviewed on Research.gov.
  • Revisions to NSF Grant Proposal Guide (effective 1/14/2013). Significant revisions have been made to this document that impact proposal submission to NSF. These changes are summarized in the first few pages of this document and should be reviewed by all potential applicants.
  • Data Management Plan Requirements on NSF Grant Proposals (effective 1/18/2011). NSF requires all grant proposals to include a supplementary document of no more than 2 pages describing how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results. Each NSF directorate and division has its own guideline for how this "Data Management Plan" should be prepared.
  • Revised Cost Sharing Policy on NSF Grant Proposals (effective 1/18/2011). NSF prohibits inclusion of any voluntary cost sharing in an NSF grant proposal unless specifically required in the NSF solicitation.
NOTICE

NSF awardees must stop submitting project reports in FastLane starting on February 1, 2013. On March 18, 2013, NSF will transfer its current project reporting service from FastLane to Research.gov. Principal Investigators should pay particular attention to reports previously submitted and returned by their NSF Program Officer. Returned reports should be revised and resubmitted prior to February 1. To assist the research community with this transition, the overdue date will be extended for all project reports that are currently scheduled to become overdue between January 31 and April 30, 2013.

Starting in January 2013, ACM$ will be implemented for 38 research organizations. These organizations will begin using ACM$ after the submission of their final Federal Financial Report to NSF. ACM$ will be implemented for use by all NSF awardee organizations in April 2013.

Upcoming Research.gov Webinars. NSF is offering the following free webinars to our awardees to provide additional information regarding these important changes:

For more information, please see our attached webinar flyer. If you would like to participate in any or all of these webinars, please email webinars@research.gov.

NSF Proposal Preparation

These resources will assist you to prepare and submit an NSF grant application. Always notify OSP when you plan to submit a grant.

FASTLane -- All PIs submitting NSF grant applications must be registered with FASTLane. To register, complete the FASTLane Registration Form and email to your OSP representative at least four weeks before grant deadline.

FASTLane Proposals, Awards, and Status -- Provides help for proposal preparation and access to proposals and awards.

NSF Grant Proposal Guide -- The guide provides detailed information about preparing NSF grant applications.

NSF Homepage -- Access to other NSF resources.

NSF Freedom of Information Act Requests -- Access to all NSF publications and publically available grant proposals and reports from NSF supported grants

NSF Proposal Preparation -- NSF provides additional instructions for preparing and submitting a proposal through FASTLane.  See the Quick Link entitled "Help for Proposal Preparation" on the Proposals, Awards, and Status page on the NSF website.