Changes to NSF Biosketch Guidelines

The National Science Foundation issued new guidelines for proposals which took effect January 25. One of these changes involved removing the Collaborators and Other Affiliations section from the biographical sketch and making it a separate document.

PIs, co-PIs, and anyone designated as senior personnel must still provide all of the same information (except the total number of persons named in each of the three categories, which is no longer required), but it is no longer part of the biographical sketch. OCG recommends that investigators with NSF biosketches simply save that final section (Section E) as a separate document (a template is provided on our website) and continue to update it.

Unless the solicitation explicitly says otherwise, do not combine these documents into a single PDF for your proposal. Each individual designated as senior personnel (including PIs and co-PIs) must upload a separate document in the appropriate Single Copy Documents section on FastLane. This is also true of collaborative proposals with separate submissions by participating institutions. Each senior person at each participating institution must upload a separate collaborators and other affiliations document. The lead organization should not upload one file for the entire project unless the solicitation specifically requires it.