NSF: Updates Research.gov for Proposal Submission, Public Access Repository, & Award Search

Member for

5 years 2 months
Submitted by mdavis25 on

Greetings Colleagues,

NSF continues to make enhancements to their systems including Research.gov, their Public Access Repository, and Award Search feature. Notably, Research.gov updates continue to prepare for FastLane's retirement for proposals in December of 2022.

Research.gov 

NSF has made several updates to Research.gov as they work toward transitioning all proposal preparation and submission from FastLane to Research.gov by their target date of December 31, 2022. They have added new FAQs to the About Proposal Preparation and Submission and updated their Proposal Submission Capabilities page to reflect recent updates including: 

  • Preliminary proposals and full proposals related to a preliminary proposal are now supported in Research.gov. The program solicitation will clearly state whether Research.gov is available for submission.
  • Program solicitations that permit a Project Description to exceed 15 pages are now supported in Research.gov.
    • Follow Project Description page limit requirements in the program solicitation.
    • Page limit requirements may vary by track or program.
    • For a program solicitation that does not include Project Description page limit instructions, follow the guidance in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 22-1).
  • Center and Research Infrastructure proposal types are also now available for submission in Research.gov.
  • New automated compliance checks and associated error and warning messages were implemented.
  • The demo Research.gov has also been updated with all proposals and submission types along with compliance checks. 
  • FastLane will continue to be incrementally removed from funding opportunities as a submission option through December 31, 2022. 

If you want to hear about system updates from the NSF directly or provide feedback about their changes, we recommend NSF eRA Forums.

NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR)

Review information, FAQs, training resources including how-to guides and step-by-step instruction on the NSF Public Access Initiative.

  • Dataset reporting in NSF project reports remains optional and adding datasets to the NSF-PAR is currently voluntary. Automatic population of NSF-PAR datasets into NSF project reports will be enabled in the Research.gov Project Reporting System in 2022. There are no changes at this time to NSF’s Public Access policy or project reporting requirements.
  • NSF's PAR 2.0 pilot is anticipated to continue through calendar year 2022.
    • Although not required, NSF would love participation and is interested in feedback emailed to them via publicaccess@nsf.gov.

NSF Award Search

NSF has added a predefined "American Rescue Plan Awards" search to the features of Award Search as a Popular Search item. Review Overview of Search Features for more details.

Thank you,
The Office of Sponsored Programs