National Science Foundation Shares Important Information Before Finalizing Proposal and Award Polices and Procedures Guide

The National Science Foundation is currently working to finalize a revised Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) for use in 2020. We anticipate that the revised PAPPG will be released in the coming months and, as is standard practice, will be effective 90 days after its release.

We wanted to highlight some important information to assist the community in preparing for this new PAPPG as it relates to the preparation and submission of the Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending Support sections of NSF proposals that fall under this revised PAPPG.

  • NSF is partnering with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to use SciENcv: Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae as an NSF-approved format for use in preparation of both the Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending Support sections of an NSF proposal.
  • Use of an NSF-approved format for the Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending Support documents will be required upon implementation of the PAPPG. NSF is encouraging proposers to begin using SciENcv for preparation of the Biographical Sketch now.
  • SciENcv allows proposers to integrate their ORCiD to enable pre-population for the Biographical Sketch. Additional information is available on the ORCiD website.
  • SciENcv will produce NSF-compliant PDF versions of these documents. Proposers must save these documents and submit them as part of their proposals via FastLane, Research.gov or Grants.gov.
  • Additional resources including video tutorials are available on the SciENcv website.

NSF will continue to communicate with the community regarding the 2020 PAPPG and will provide further notice to the community as soon as the revised PAPPG is released. We encourage you to sign up for notifications about future PAPPG implementation webinars. In the meantime, proposers should continue to follow the guidance in the current PAPPG, (19-1).