The National Science Foundation (NSF) issued several important policy changes with the NEW Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) that will take effect for proposals submitted on or after May 20, 2024.
These changes include new requirements for 1) current and pending support and biographical sketches, 2) graduate student mentoring plans, and 3) research security disclosures.
NSF provides an extensive summary of the changes in the PAPPG; faculty and staff who work with the agency should carefully review the changes.
SPA staff are available to attend departmental meetings to discuss the most significant changes. Please contact Whitney Wells to arrange a meeting.
A summary of the changes are as follows:
- Biographical Sketch – The biographical sketch no longer has a page limitation. Changes to the form implements the new Common Disclosure form per National Security Presidential Memo -33 (NSPM-33). The biographical sketch will continue to be created in SciENcv to produce a pdf compliant version that can be attached to the proposal in Research.gov. See SPA’s SciENcv Resource Page for assistance (content under Emerging/Hot Topics). The Synergistic Activities section has been removed from the biosketch document.
- New Synergistic Activities Document – Synergistic Activities will now be provided in a separate document. Each senior/key personnel must include a one-page document with up to five examples that demonstrate the broader impact of their professional and scholarly activities that focus on the creation, integration, and transfer of knowledge. This document is submitted as part of the Senior/Key personnel documents in Research.gov.
- Current and Pending Support –The current and pending support form will continue to be created in SciENcv to produce a pdf compliant version that can be attached to the proposal in Research.gov. Like the biographical sketch, the form implements new Common Disclosure form requirements.
- Graduate Student Mentoring Plan – The requirements for the Postdoctoral Researcher Mentoring Plan have been expanded to include a plan for graduate students. The page limit for a Mentoring Plan is still one page and only one plan is submitted per proposal (regardless of where the student(s) reside). Mentoring activities will be evaluated under the Broader Impacts review criterion. PIs are required to create an individual graduate student mentoring plan for any student supported for more than one person month on the project and will need to certify this with the progress report; these individual plans are not submitted to NSF though PIs should assume that plans may be requested for review.
- Foreign Organizations – NSF provides additional guidance for the inclusion of a foreign organization (subaward) or foreign individual (consultant) in a proposal budget. The new PAPPG describes the agency’s expectations for justifying how foreign participation benefits U.S. research and education. Justification must be part of the project description and the box for “Funding of a Foreign Organization or Foreign Individual” must be checked on the Cover Sheet.
- Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Programs (MFTRP) – Any individual who is a party to a MFTRP is ineligible to serve as a senior/key person on a NSF proposal or award. Individuals will need to attest to this via their signature on the biographical sketch and current and pending support. This new policy is part of NSF’s implementation of the National Security Presidential Memorandum-33 (NSPM-33). NIU, as the grantee, must also certify that all individuals identified as senior/key personnel have been made aware of and have complied with their responsibility to certify that they are not party to a Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Program. NSF will require that PIs and Co-PIs certify annually thereafter. All NIU PI and Co-PIs certify their awareness of this prohibition when approving proposals in InfoEd. (NSF indicates they are not retroactively applying this to any proposal or award made prior to May 20th.)
Contact SPA or ORCIS right away with any questions about this requirement.
- Proposal Font, Spacing, and Margin Requirements – Formatting requirements are being updated to allow for submission of proposal documents in landscape format.
- Tribal Nation Approval – Proposals that may impact the resources of a Tribal Nation must seek and obtain approval from the Tribal Nation prior to award.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) – PIs are encouraged to indicate in the project description the extent to which, if any, generative AI technology was used to develop their proposal.
- Submission Deadline Clarification – Chapter I.F, When to Submit Proposals, has been modified to clarify that the 5 p.m. submitter’s local time is tied to the organization, and not the location of the PI.
