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NSF announces public access policy plans

On March 18, 2015, the National Science Foundation announced its plan to provide greater public access to the results of its funded research, "Today's Data, Tomorrow's Discoveries". This will be officially announced in April 2015 and is slated to go into effect in January 2016.

Much of the plan is a re-commitment to data management and the availability of funds to support publication and presentation of data to the public, but the new component is the publications policy: Within a year of publication, either the version of record or the final accepted manuscript in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, and papers in juried conference proceedings, must be deposited into a publicly-accessible database.

This move is not without precedent among Federal sponsors as the NIH has had such a policy in place for years.

NSF by the numbers

From the National Science Foundation's FY 2016 Budget Request to Congress brochure.

NIH increases salary cap as of 1/11/15

The Executive Level II salary level, at $181,500 for FY2014, is increasing to $183,300 effective 1/11/15. Note that this amount is based on a 12-month salary; for faculty members, if your academic base salary is at or exceeds $137,475, you must use this capped rate when calculating salary requests on NIH grant applications.

See the full notice here: NOT-OD-15-049.

NIH Update: new biosketch not required until 5/25/15

NIH has pushed back the requirement to use the new biosketch format from January to May, although they "encourage" people to start using it for applications due on or after January 25th. The new deadline for mandatory use of the new format is for applications due on or after May 25, as detailed in notice NOT-OD-15-032. They also state in this notice that they have made "adjustments to improve [the] usability" of the new forms.

New biosketch format for NIH applications starting 1/25/15

Applications submitted to the NIH on or after January 25, 2015 will need to use one of the new biosketch formats: standard or Fellowship-specific. These have been in pilot-testing for a few months. (Until that time you may choose to use either the old or new formats.) The new formats and an explanation for the change are found in NIH notice number NOT-OD-15-024; more information can be found on their FAQ's page.

NIH recommends the use of SciENcv for help with creating different biosketch formats. It's also available through My NCBI which you will be familiar with from managing your publications associated with NIH grants.

Fastlane unavailable 10/10 to 10/14

Because the NSF is transitioning to a new financial system, they are taking Fastlane offline from 8pm on Friday, October 10, to 6am on Tuesday, October 14. Please plan accordingly.