Announcement: The National Science Foundation (NSF) released Policy Notice Supplement 2 on January 23, 2026, announcing updates to the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) v24-1. These changes supersede related financial assistance policies in the current PAPPG and introduce system enhancements to support NSF’s Gold Standard Science Implementation Plan.
In parallel, NSF is updating its NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR) and Research.gov Project Reporting systems.
Key System & Policy Updates
NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR)
- Removal of the 12-month publication embargo for all PDF product types
- Ability to submit both Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) and Versions of Record (VoR)
- Availability of machine-readable XML versions of publications for download
- PAR Identifiers (PAR IDs) will now function as Persistent Identifiers (PIDs), similar to DOIs
Research.gov Project Reports
- Automatic population of PAR IDs as persistent links for journal articles, conference papers, datasets, and workshop reports
- Automatic population of AAM and VoR metadata from NSF-PAR into Project Reports (for journal articles, conference papers, and workshop reports)
- Direct dataset entry into Project Reports within Research.gov will no longer be permitted
Important Upcoming Change: Data Management and Sharing Plans (DMSP)
A new Research.gov tool referenced in the DMSP section of PAPPG Supplement 2 will be released on April 27, 2026.
Proposals submitted prior to April 27, 2026 must continue to upload the DMSP as a PDF.
These updates streamline compliance with NSF public access requirements, improve interoperability between NSF-PAR and Research.gov, and accelerate access to research outputs by removing publication embargoes and enabling persistent identifiers.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your DCG Officer.