NSF proposal guidance

Reviewed 2026-10-01. Use the solicitation, amendments, and effective policy notices before the base PAPPG. The current PAPPG index still identifies NSF 24-1; draft replacement guidance is not an effective rule. Supplement 1 and Supplement 2 modify it. Record which rules apply to the proposal and prospective award.

Start from the opportunity

Record its NSF number, revision, due date and time zone, eligible organizations and investigators, proposal type, budget, duration, and required documents. Use funding search for current opportunities; a funded award or an archived solicitation does not establish an open call. Use current directorate and program names from the opportunity, not an old org chart.

Review and narrative

Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts are both required and receive full consideration. NSF does not prescribe a universal 50/50 numerical weighting. Include any additional solicitation criteria.

For intellectual merit, explain the question, existing evidence, specific gap, new contribution, design, analysis, uncertainty, alternatives, and available expertise. For broader impacts, connect an achievable benefit to activities, resources, owners, and assessment. Research itself can deliver broader impacts; outreach is not mandatory for every project. See broader_impacts.md for drafting examples.

Application package

Under PAPPG Chapter II, standard research proposals generally use the following package. Special proposal classes and solicitations can differ; construct the actual checklist from those rules.

The NSF Common Form biosketch has no overall page limit; individual fields/products have limits. Synergistic Activities is a separate one-page document with up to five examples, not a section in an old three-page biosketch. Use the current SciENcv export and required certification; do not manufacture a lookalike or edit a certified PDF. Check current research-security training and disclosure certifications under Supplement 1 and the submission system.

Data management and sharing

Supplement 2 specifies the Research.gov DMSP tool, released April 27, 2026. The earlier two-page PDF-upload workflow applies to proposals submitted before that date. Prepare the plan using the current tool and NSF-unit guidance. Address data, repositories, timing, access, reuse, preservation, and justified restrictions. One unified plan covers a simultaneously submitted collaboration and subawards. Under the supplemented policy, data supporting publications are shared at publication unless an exception is justified. Confirm the award's applicable public-access terms.

Formatting

For ordinary uploaded proposal text, Chapter II permits Arial (not Arial Narrow), Courier New, or Palatino Linotype at 10 points or larger; Times New Roman or Computer Modern at 11 points or larger. Use margins of at least one inch, at most six lines per vertical inch, and no larger than US letter paper. Smaller text is permitted for specified equations/figures/tables/captions but must remain legible. Check exported PDFs at actual size. Follow Research.gov pagination instructions and auto-checks.

Budget decisions

• NSF's normal two-month salary policy applies per senior/key person across all NSF grants, not just summer salary on one proposal. Explain anticipated excess in the budget justification and obtain the required approval through the award.
• Do not offer voluntary committed cost sharing to improve competitiveness. Include mandatory sharing only when the solicitation requires it.
• Use the organization's applicable negotiated indirect-cost rate and base, current award terms, and governing cost rules. Equipment thresholds and subaward portions included in MTDC are not safely inferred from the unamended 2024 text; Chapter II states that 2 CFR takes precedence where inconsistent. Have sponsored research confirm the effective capitalization policy and rate agreement.
• Separate employees doing project work from eligible participants in a training activity; not every student payment is participant support. Classify tuition, fringe, and indirect-cost exclusions explicitly.

Special proposal types

CAREER NSF 22-586 requires an eligible untenured assistant professor or equivalent with at least a 50% tenure-track/equivalent appointment and no prior CAREER award, among other conditions. There is no general six-years-since-PhD rule. Check the three-competition limit, one proposal per competition, no co-PIs, departmental letter, five-year plan, and directorate-specific minimum award amount. A minimum is not a budget ceiling. Read the current deadline from the program listing rather than inferring it from July.

PAPPG RAPID and EAGER are special procedures requiring prior program-officer consultation/authorization and their specified concept outlines. Check the current PAPPG for limits (RAPID normally $200,000/one year; EAGER $300,000/two years, both including indirect costs), review exceptions, and proposal-specific instructions. Do not treat them as ordinary open calls or a guarantee of no external review.

Collaborations may use a single proposal with subawards or separately submitted, linked proposals. Follow the selected method's shared-document and lead-organization instructions rather than uploading duplicate near-identical narratives everywhere.

Submission and revision

Use the opportunity's permitted route, normally Research.gov or the supported Grants.gov route. FastLane is not the current proposal-submission workflow. Confirm institutional registrations, PI affiliation, and AOR submission authority early. Deadline times are normally 5 p.m. submitting organization's local time; the solicitation and applicable exceptions control. Inspect the assembled application and agency receipt/validation status; a local upload is not submission confirmation.

NSF generally treats a revised, previously declined proposal as a new proposal, with no NIH-style A1 introduction. Address the reviews in the scientific plan, check any program resubmission restrictions, and use permitted program-officer feedback. Reviews and historical funding statistics do not guarantee a future award or timeline.