grants

All NSF proposals submitted after January 13, 2013 MUST adhere to the new Grant Proposal Guide (GPG). For the new GPG please visit:  http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf13001/nsf13_1.pdf. Beginning on Page 14 is a summary of all changes. Please call our office with any questions.

The main areas that have changed in writing proposals are:

• Project Summary, has been revised to omit language regarding the inclusion of separate headings to address the two merit review criteria. In lieu of this approach, FastLane has been modified to display three separate text boxes in which proposers must provide an Overview and address the “Intellectual Merit’ and “Broader Impacts” of the proposed activity. Because FastLane will enable the criteria to be separately addressed (still within one page), proposers will no longer need to include separate headings. Proposals that do not separately address the overview and both merit review criteria within the one-page Project Summary will be not be accepted or will be returned without review. Just an FYI – the Project Summary Text Boxes have a TOTAL character limit of 4,600 – there is no character count in the Fastlane form. We recommend writing the verbiage for the three text boxes in Word first – check the character count and then copy and paste into the Fastlane form.
• Project Description, has been revised to implement changes related to the Content and Results from Prior NSF Support sections recommended by the National Science Board (NSB). The Content instructions were updated to provide contextual information about proposal preparation and to include revised language related to broader impacts of the proposed activities from the ACRA and the Board’s report. In the past, the Project Description needed to include a description of broader impacts as an integral part of the narrative. The Project Description must now contain, as a separate section within the narrative, a discussion of the broader impacts of the proposed activities. This section also was updated to indicate that Intellectual Merit and Broader Impact activities must be described in two separate sections in the summary of Results from Prior NSF Support.
• Biographical Sketch(es), has been 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.
• The Facilities, Equipment and Resources is no longer a form. Instead you may upload a document.