Office of Research and Project Administration

The following message is forwarded from the National Science Foundation Policy Office.  Note that the new Policies and Procedures Guide is effective for proposals submitted on or after June 1, 2007.  

Please note that ORPA will be reviewing this document as soon as possible and will further summarize any major changes that need to be brought to your attention. 

Dear Colleagues:

We are pleased to announce the new NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (NSF 07-140) which is comprised of documents relating to the Foundation's proposal and award process.  The Guide consolidates two previous standalone NSF policy documents: the NSF Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) and the Grant Policy Manual (GPM) and combines them into a single electronic policy framework.   The Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide will be effective for proposals submitted on or after June 1, 2007.  This document supercedes all prior versions of the GPG and GPM and can be accessed at: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf07140. 

NSF chose to implement this new policy framework for a number of reasons.  We believe that it will improve both the awareness and knowledge of the complete set of NSF policies and procedural documents, increase ease of access to the policies and procedures that govern the entire grant lifecycle and eliminate duplicative and sometimes truncated coverage between the GPG and GPM.  The new Guide also should increase the transparency of the NSF proposal and award process and allow the Foundation to better manage amendments between the documents due to administrative changes.  

The Guide consists of two parts:

·          Part I is comprised of NSF's proposal preparation and submission guidelines - the NSF Grant Proposal Guide and the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide (to be incorporated at a later date).

·          Part II is comprised of documents used to guide, manage and monitor the award and administration of grants and cooperative agreements made by the Foundation.  The Grant Policy Manual has been incorporated into the Guide as Part II and has been renamed the Award & Administration Guide (AAG).

An Introduction precedes Part I of the Guide and contains updated sections, including:
§          About the National Science Foundation;
§          Foreword;
§          Acronym list;
§          Definitions and NSF-Grantee Relationships;
§          Description of NSF Organizations; and
§          NSF Organizational Chart (including hypertext links). 

Many changes have been made to the GPG and GPM in order to combine and consolidate them to form the new PAPP Guide.  Some of the significant changes found in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide include:
§          Coverage on exceptions to NSF's deadline date policy;
§          Identification of designated fonts that must be used to prepare an NSF proposal;
§          Increased coverage on the Grants.gov apply function;
§          Further guidance on the elimination of program-specific cost sharing and removal of the statutory (1%) cost sharing requirement;
§          Incorporation of two additional proposal certifications regarding Nondiscrimination and Flood Hazard Insurance;
§          Incorporation of language regarding use of the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) rate at the time of the award; and
§          Revision of human and vertebrate animal data for consistency with Grants.gov.

Each Part of the Guide contains a by-Chapter summary of significant changes to assist the user in navigating through the changes.   

The Guide will be available in HTML format, as originally described, by the end of this month.  The document currently is available as a fully Web-linked and searchable PDF version which gives users the ability to print either Parts of the Guide or the document in its entirety. If you have any questions regarding the new NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide, please contact the Policy Office on 703-292-8243 or by e-mail to policy@nsf.gov .    

Regards,

Jean Feldman
Head, Policy Office 

National Science Foundation  
Division of Institution and Award Support
Office of Budget, Finance & Award Management