Applying to NSF

Chris Carsten

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 with the mission to “…promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense.” Today the NSF supports fundamental research in STEM disciplines — Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

In order to receive a competitive award from the NSF, a PI/PD (Principal Investigator/Program Director) must submit a solid proposal that follows the program guidelines and addresses the NSF Merit Review Criteria: Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts. There are currently three ways to submit a grant proposal electronically to the NSF:

  • NSF FastLane
  • NSF Research.gov
  • Grants.gov

SYSTEMS

With FastLane, launched in 1994, the agency was at the forefront of developing an electronic portal for propose-to-close management of proposals, awards, reports, and financial transactions. NSF has continued its leadership in electronic research administration by developing an updated portal that will eventually house all functionality: Research.gov.

During a transition that started in 2012, proposal and award activity is being migrated from FastLane to Research.gov – this transition is expected to be complete within the next few years, and requires that people know how to work in both, and know the specifics of what each portal currently handles.

Current functionality information and transition timeline information is available at: https://www.research.gov/proposalprep/#/release-timeline

FastLane:

  • Collaborative proposals (multi-institution & single institution);
  • RAPID, EAGER, Fellowship proposals;
  • LOIs, Pre-proposals, Renewals

Research.gov (as of the September 2018 release):

  • Single institution, non-collaborative full research proposals only
  • Post-award requests and actions (e.g., NCE, participant support reallocation, etc.)
  • Outcomes, Progress & Final Project reports
  • Financial reports and award cash management service
  • Account and profile management

Grants.gov:

  • Single institution, with or without subrecipients, research proposals only[

ACCOUNTS

FastLane and Research.gov

Only one account is required for access to both systems. As of March 2018, all login requests go through Research.gov, even for activities that will be initiated and completed in FastLane.

Anyone who will be named as a PI or Co-PI on a proposal needs to request an investigator account. Proposal creation and the release to submit action for a proposal have to be done by the PI or a Co-PI.

Department research administrators can be of assistance by leveraging the Other Authorized User (OAU) role. OAUs are added to a proposal in Research.gov through the Manage Personnel section, or use a PIN number generated by the PI to access a FastLane proposal.

Account registration management also changed in March 2018; individuals now create their own accounts and request affiliation with an organization. Account administrators have much less control over accounts, and no ability to see account information until an affiliation request has been completed.

Grants.gov

Submissions via Grants.gov require Research.gov accounts as well as the standard Grants.gov access for the person creating the Workspace for the application.

COLLABORATIONS

Proposals involving more than one institution or organization can be submitted in two different ways: Single institution with subrecipients or multi-institution using separate but linked proposals. Single institution proposals with subrecipients can be submitted through FastLane or Grants.gov.  Multi-institution proposals must be submitted through FastLane.

Single Institution

When a single institution submits a proposal with subrecipients, the applicant organization and the identified PI bear primary responsibility for the administration of the award, reporting, and discussions with NSF. Collaborators from the subrecipient institutions can be named as Co-PIs, but all funding is handled through an award to the applicant institution, which then issues subawards.

Multi-institution

For a proposal that involves multiple institutions, separate but linked proposals can be submitted by each institution. One institution must be identified as the lead. The PI of the lead institution’s proposal generates a proposal PIN and shares this with the other collaborating organizations, who enter the PIN in their proposals so that NSF can see they are related. The lead institution is expected to review and coordinate the applications so that the basic shared information in each proposal is consistent and the proposals are submitted in close time proximity (within a few hours, usually not more than a day’s difference in submission time). The location of the collaborators needs to be taken into account for compliance with a 5 p.m. submitter’s time deadline. If this kind of collaborative submission is funded, each institution gets its own award.

A program solicitation can restrict submission to only one of these types of collaborations. Any restriction information will usually be included in the pre-submission instructions section.

PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND AUTOMATIC CHECKING

The user interfaces for FastLane and Research.gov are very different.

FastLane edit view includes multiple ‘Go’ buttons, and more buttons within each section for calculations, uploading files or navigating to other sections of a form (like within the Cover Page).

Research.gov shows a main page of required and optional elements. Clicking one of the links takes the user to a new page to complete data entry or upload documents.

Both FastLane and Research.gov proposals have to be completed based on the requirements of the program solicitation, but the automated proposal checking looks different. FastLane provides a window of messages at the submit to SRO/SPO step and again at the AOR submit action. Research.gov provides real-time checking in the list of required and optional elements for an ‘in progress’ proposal.

A Grants.gov submission is developed using a Workspace for the NSF opportunity. However, Grants.gov provides no error checking.  After the submission is done in Grants.gov, the OSP AOR has to login to FastLane to confirm the application has been fully submitted. All corrections (for missing components or any other errors) and final submission occur in FastLane.

POST-SUBMISSION UPDATES

Corrections to a proposal can be done only in FastLane or Research.gov (i.e., no ‘changed/corrected’ applications can be submitted through Grants.gov).

Proposal File Update

A Proposal File Update is used to make corrections to submitted content, excluding the budget.  Prior to the deadline, no permission is required to initiate a proposal file update. In this case, the update must be initiated by the PI.  After initiation by the PI, the proposal file update must be forwarded to the Institutional AOR for submission.

After the deadline, proposal file updates can only be initiated if the Program Official opens the Proposal File Update Module.  Updates must be initiated by the PI and forwarded to the AOR for submission.

Revised Proposal Budget

Changes to the budget/budget justification occurring after the deadline can only be initiated per the request of the Program Official.  Updates must be initiated by the PI and forwarded to the AOR for submission.  Budget reductions of 10% or greater require a justification as to how the project will be impacted.

RESOURCES

Blog by Chris Carsten, eRA Systems Officer, Office of Sponsored Programs, Colorado State University.

Content for this blog comes from the NSF PAPPG, current opportunity solicitations, NSF and Research.gov websites, FastLane help, and a number of educational experiences.