Data Management Funder Policies

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) outlines the following:

• Proposal preparation and submission guidelines
• Policies and procedures regarding the award, administration, and monitoring of the Foundation’s grants and cooperative agreements

NSF's current Public Access Plan: Today's Data, Tomorrow's Discoveries: Increasing Access to the Results of Research Funded by the National Science Foundation includes several provisions for researchers, such as the inclusion of a Data Management Plan (DMP), as well as guidance on archiving, preserving, and disseminating research outputs.

Data Management Plans

Currently, researchers submitting proposals to NSF are required to include a data management plan. This is outlined in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) Chapter II: Proposal Preparation Instructions, section D.2.i.ii Plans for Data Management and Sharing of the Products of Research.

NSF guidance on Preparing Your Data Management Plan indicates the plan should describe how the proposal will comply with NSF policy and may include information on:

• The type of data
• The standards that will be used for data and metadata
• Provisions for data access and sharing
• Provisions for data reuse
• Plans for archiving and preserving access to data and research products

Researchers should follow guidance specific to a division, or program, if applicable. Links to specific guidance can be found in the 'Directorate and/or division guidance' section on the Preparing Your Data Management Plan page.

The DMPTool provides templates for many divisions and departments of NSF:

• Arctic Data Center: NSF Polar Programs
• BCO-DMO NSF OCE: Biological and Chemical Oceanography
• NSF-AGS: Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences
• NSF-AST: Astronomical Sciences
• NSF-BIO: Biological Sciences
• NSF-CHE: Chemistry Division
• NSF-CISE: Computer and Information Science and Engineering
• NSF-DMR: Materials Research
• NSF-DMS: Mathematical Sciences
• NSF-EAR: Earth Sciences
• NSF-EHR: Education and Human Resources
• NSF-ENG: Engineering
• NSF-GEN: Generic
• NSF-PHY: Physics
• NSF-SBE: Social, Behavioral, Economic Sciences

Research Products

Researchers awarded NSF funding from proposals submitted or due on or after January 25, 2016 must submit peer-reviewed publications and juried conference papers to the NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR). NSF allows for a 12 month embargo from the date of publication to make the documents publicly available.

Currently, datasets are not required to be deposited into the NSF PAR, although a pilot project allows dataset metadata to be added.

However, NSF guidance indicates deposit of data should be addressed in the data management plan, and researchers are encouraged to seek assistance from their program officer on the selection of a suitable repository. Different programs and divisions may have different requirements and guidance. The Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE), for example, maintains a list of Approved Data and Sample Repositories.

Additional Information

For current policy information, researchers are encouraged to review the below information:

• Public Access to Results of NSF-Funded Research
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Public Access

The NSF has released in the NSF Public Access Plan 2.0: Ensuring Open, Immediate and Equitable Access to National Science Foundation Funded Research and anticipates enforcing new policies no later than January 2025. According to the plan, changes to current policies include:

• Removal of the year-long optional embargo period in NSF-PAR. Researchers will be required to submit either the publisher's version of record or the author's approved manuscript into NSF-PAR without embargo (p. 10).
  • Consideration about extending public access requirements to include book chapters, non-juried conference proceedings, and additional research requirements (p. 11).
• Requirement to submit scientific data underlying a peer-reviewed publication to a repository (p. 14).
  • Guidance to determine whether researchers need to provide access to a certain dataset will be provided (p. 13).
  • Promotion of the use of disciplinary repositories (p. 13).
•  Retitling Data Management Plan (DMP) to Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) (p. 15).
  • Researchers will be required to include more detailed information about how the data will be shared and what repositories will be used (p. 15).
• Implementing more systematic use of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) for research outputs, researchers, and awards though full implementation is not anticipated before January of 2027 (p. 18).

Researchers are encouraged to review the following resources for additional information:

• NSF Public Access Initiative
• NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR) FAQ