New Guidance For NSF Personnel Documents

Effective for proposals due on or after June 1, 2020, NSF will validate biographical sketches and current and pending support documents that are submitted in an NSF-approved format upon document upload in Research.gov and FastLane. Noncompliant documents will not be uploaded to the proposal, and users will receive an error with instructions on how to proceed. A proposal cannot be submitted without these required documents. NSF requires a biographical sketch and current and pending support for each individual identified as senior personnel.

Biographical Sketches

The biographical sketch is currently limited to two pages. Effective October 4, 2021, the page limitation will be increased to 3 pages for each individual identified as senior personnel. The formats below are for proposals submitted October 4, 2021 and after.

Approved formats for creating a biographical sketch are one of the following:

•  SciENcv: The system will produce an NSF-compliant PDF version of the biographical sketch. Proposers must save these documents and submit them as part of their proposals via FastLane or Research.gov.
  • FAQs on using SciENcv
  • SciENcv Guidance on Creating an NSF Biographical Sketch, including step-by-step instructions and screenshots for each of the four required sections
  • YouTube Video - SciENcv for NSF Users: Biographical Sketches
  • YouTube Video - SciENcv Tutorial
  • YouTube Video - Integrating with ORCID

• NSF Fillable PDF: NSF is providing a fillable PDF for use in preparation of the biographical sketch. Proposers will be able to download it from this page, complete the form, and upload it as part of their proposal via FastLane or Research.gov.

Current and Pending Support

Approved formats for creating current & pending support are one of the following:

• SciENcv – The system will produce NSF-compliant PDF versions of the current & pending support format. Proposers must save these documents and submit them as part of their proposals via FastLane or Research.gov.
  • FAQs on using SciENcv
  • SciENcv Guidance on Creating an NSF Current and Pending Support document, including step-by-step instructions and screenshots for the two required sections

• NSF Fillable PDF - NSF is providing a fillable PDF of the current & pending support format. Proposers will be able to download it from this page, complete the form, and upload as part of their proposal via FastLane, or Research.gov.
  • FAQs on what to include in Current and Pending Support - addressing policy questions and clarifications to the current and pending support coverage
• Effective August 30, 2021, Current and Pending Support fillable PDFs uploaded in FastLane and Grants.gov will be trimmed of any pages which do not contain data entered by users (i.e., blank pages). The trimming service only applies to the NSF-approved Current and Pending Support fillable PDFs and not to any other uploaded PDFs. When viewing the updated PDF after the trimming process, please note that only blank pages are removed, and the remaining pages will not be re-numbered.
• The trimming service will be available in Research.gov on October 4th for Current and Pending Support fillable PDFs submitted as part of proposals and project reports.

Questions

Please reach out to your contract administrator or nsf-help@mit.edu for assistance.