October 8, 2012

Revised NSF Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) and Award & Administration Guide (AAG)



The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a new version of the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), (NSF 13-1). The PAPPG consists of the (1) Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) for guidance on the preparation and submission of proposals to NSF and (2) Award & Administration Guide (AAG) to guide, manage, and monitor the award and administration of grants and cooperative agreements made by NSF.

This new version of the PAPPG will be effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after January 14, 2013. In the interim, the guidelines contained in the current PAPPG (NSF 11-1) continue to apply. 

Sheryl Koenig, Grant Writing Consultant for the Bond Life Sciences Center, provided a summary (below) of the changes in the GPG.*

Additionally, please note a change in the AAG stating that “project reports must contain information on all activities of the project, including any activities to address the broader impacts criterion that are not intrinsic to the research.”

For additional information about the revisions to the merit review criteria, NSF has created a resource website for the proposer community containing presentations, fact sheets, and other important links. 

                                                                                                                                                    

*NSF has issued a new Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) that will be effective January 14, 2013.  In coordination with the changes to the GPG, there will be a few changes made to FastLane.  Many of the changes clarify areas that have caused confusion in the past, but there are a few changes that are more notable.

·         Project Summary -  FastLane has been modified to display three separate text boxes in which proposers must provide an Overview, a statement on the Intellectual Merit of the proposed activity, and a statement on the Broader Impacts on the proposed activity.  Therefore, proposers will no longer need to include separate headings.
·         Project Description  - Content instructions were updated to provide contextual information about proposal preparation and to include revised language related to broader impacts.
·         Results from Prior NSF Support instructions were updated to indicate that this section should include current funding and that Intellectual Merit and Broader Impact activities must be described in two separate sections in the summary of Results from Prior NSF Support.
·         Biosketches - Revised to rename the “Publications” section to “Products” and amend terminology and instructions accordingly.  This change makes clear that products may include, but are not limited to, publications, data sets, software, patents, and copyrights.
·         Budget – Senior Project  Personnel Salaries and Wages
·         This section has been updated to describe a new functionality in FastLane regarding senior personnel and the budget.  If no person months and no salary are being released for senior personnel, they should be removed from Section A of the budget.  This change was made for consistency with NSF’s cost sharing policy.
·         Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources  - A new format for submission of the Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources information will be available in FastLane effective in January 2013.  The new format will assist proposers in complying with the NSF cost sharing policy.
·         Postdoctoral Researcher Mentoring Plan  - Mentoring activities will be evaluated under the Broader Impacts review criterion.
·         Review Criteria - This section has been renamed Merit Review Principles and Criteria and revised to incorporate recommendations from the NSB.  New language has been added on merit review principles, and revised merit review criteria language was inserted. 

The attached document contains more details on these and other changes made to the GPG.  I’ve copied and pasted sections of the new guidelines with yellow highlighting on the revised language.



This document is not a complete description of all changes made.  You can see the entire GPG at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf13001/gpgprint.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_109