Merit Review Criteria for NSF Proposals

This is to remind you of the importance of including the two required Merit Review Criteria in all NSF proposal submissions.

The NSF has become more stringent in its evaluation of the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts review criteria.  MIT recently had a proposal returned without review because the Project Summary did not include the words “intellectual merit” and “broader impacts”.  While the PI felt that both had been discussed in the summary, NSF responded that the two criteria had not been specifically identified, and thus it was left to interpretation as to whether they had been addressed at all.  The Program Director stated that NSF must enforce all proposal requirements as set forth in the Grant Proposal Guide, uniformly and without exception.

Due to the more stringent implementation of this NSF requirement, OSP will return for correction any NSF proposal that does not clearly identify by named call-out in the Project Summary: (1) the paragraph that discusses the proposed project’s Broader Impacts; and (2) the paragraph that discusses the proposed project’s Intellectual Merits.

Please review NSF reference documents regarding Merit Review Criteria (links below):

NSF Grant Proposal Guide (Chapter II.C.2b).

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/papp/gpg_2.jsp

“The project summary…should include a statement of objectives and methods to be employed.  It must clearly address in separate statements (within the one-page summary):

• The intellectual merit of the proposed activity; and

• The broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity”

NSF Important Notice 127:

“Effective October 1, 2002, NSF will return without review proposals that do not separately address both merit review criteria within the Project Summary.”

http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=iin127

Last updated 3/10/08