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Federal Public Access Policies: NSF Policy

An overview of the current and future landscape of US Public Access Policies.

Current NSF Public Access Policy

  • All peer-reviewed publications that are the result of an NSF grant must be made publicly available in NSF-PAR. Currently, all publications submitted to NSF-PAR are automatically given a 12-month embargo.
    • If you need assistance or support submitting a publication to NSF-PAR, please review this guide or reach out to the author of this LibGuide. 
  • All applications submitted on or after January 18, 2011 are required to have a Data Management and Sharing Plan to help increase the public availability of NSF-funded data, as appropriate. 

Updates to NSF Policy in Response to the Nelson Memo

In response to the 2013 Holdren Memo, the NSF has required that all publications (from awards issued after January 2016) must be made publicly available in the NSF Public Access Repository (PAR). Currently, all publications submitted to this repository have an automatic 12-month embargo. In response to the 2022 Nelson Memo, the NSF plans to remove the automatic 12-month embargo period on publications that are submitted to NSF-PAR. This major change to this policy that will go into effect on October 1, 2025 is that these publications can no longer be embargoed for up to a year after publication.

Current NSF policy, as detailed in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), requires all award applicants to submit a data management and sharing plan for the products of research. This policy provides the foundation for NSF response to the requirements detailed in the Nelson Memo. 

Since 2022, NSF has been running a pilot program to allow researchers to optionally report datasets as products of their NSF grants using DOIs. As a consequence of the 2022 Nelson Memo, all data underlying peer-reviewed publications that have been funded by NSF awards will be required to be submitted to NSF PAR via DOI. It is important to note that: "NSF will develop procedures to request reasonable accommodations to delay the public release of data which have access limitations associated with them" (NSF Public Access Plan 2.0, p. 13). 

For data not associated with publications, NSF plans to develop additional guidance about making these data sets publicly available, as appropriate. 

Publications: Metadata for peer-reviewed scholarly publications are currently captured for articles deposited in NSF-PAR. NSF plans to develop additional metadata elements to be captured in an updated version of the repository before the end of 2027 (NSF Public Access Plan 2.0, p.16). 

Scientific Data: NSF-PAR currently provides fields for DOIs for research outputs, but these are not required. The agency plans on developing infrastructure for the proper capture and documentation of metadata and PIDs for future implementation. 

Researcher Digital Persistent Identifiers (PIDs): The NSF currently does not require a researcher PID when submitting or receiving an award. However, they are working on implementing this requirement as part of the biographical sketch (through SciENcv). It is important to note that the only researcher PID that is currently compliant with federal specifications is ORCID.  

Grants & Awards: Each NSF award is assigned a unique federal award identification number (FAIN) that allows for tracking within the NSF system. However, these numbers are not considered PIDs because they are not "actionable URLs" (NSF Public Access Plan 2.0, p. 17). Consequently, NSF plans to implement DOIs associated with each award number by the end of 2027.