Don’t Dismiss the Details: NSF Proposal Submission Checklist & FAQs

This is the next post in my ongoing series on “Writing a Strong NSF CAREER Proposal.” Read all the posts here.

Does this NSF program require keywords? Does the solicitation ask for specific supplemental documents? Where is that Facilities document again anyway?

NSF proposals can span dozens or even hundreds of pages, and there are a lot of moving parts: the Project Description, References Cited, Budget and Budget Justification, Facilities, Data Management, Mentoring, and, and, and…. Even when you have done it many times before, it is easy to miss a detail in the final stretch.

That is why I created this NSF proposal submission checklist: a practical, one-page working tool for tracking the core research.gov proposal documents and the supplemental materials that are easiest to forget.

This checklist is designed to help you do the boring-but-dangerous part of NSF submission: making sure every required document is present, correctly named, and checked against the solicitation before the deadline panic begins. If you’ve ever had to re-upload your Supplemental Documents more than once — or more than …a bunch of times — this checklist is for you!

NSF Proposal Submission Documents

The NSF proposal submission requirements are listed in NSF’s Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), plus any additional active NSF policy notices or supplements. For example, as of June 2026, the current PAPPG is NSF 24-1 and supplements include Supplement 1 (NSF 26-200), and Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202). There may also be specific requirements for each solicitation, and your institution’s sponsored programs may provide required guidance as well.

The NSF research.gov submission system auto-creates a Table of Contents for each proposal, which is a good place to start for a list of documents you need to provide as PI:

• Cover Sheet for Proposal to the National Science Foundation
• Project Summary (not to exceed 1 page)
• Table of Contents
• Project Description (Including Results from Prior NSF Support) (not to exceed 15 pages)
• References Cited
• Biographical Sketches
• Budget (Plus up to 5 pages of budget justification. For proposals that contain subaward(s), each subaward must include a separate budget justification of no more than 5 pages)
• Current and Pending (Other) Support
• Synergistic Activities
• Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources
• Special Information/Supplementary Documents (Data Management and Sharing Plan, Mentoring Plan and Other Supplementary Documents)

The Supplemental Documents Section Is Where Things Get Messy

That last item in the Table of Contents is doing a lot of work, though: it places most supplemental documents in their own “section” without specifying a full list or order to assist you. My one-page checklist specifies the (currently as of June 26, 2026) required Supplemental Documents, leaving some flexibility for different size teams and different types of partners. I also included some often-forgotten rules on the second page. The third page is a guide to help you remember what each of the documents are and their respective lengths. Check out the little pop-quiz below — how many NSF details do you know?

Did You Know?

Test your knowledge with these questions about detailed nuances that appear in the current PAPPG:

1. Fill in the blank. All proposals that will fund either a postdoctoral researcher or graduate student must submit a ___________ Plan.

2. Select one. Including URLs in the Project Description [ IS / IS NOT ] allowable.

3. True or False. Synergistic activities such as serving on editorial boards or advising student organizations are listed at the end of the PI/Co-PI’s Biosketch.

Answers appear upside down at the end of this post 😊

Get My NSF Submission Checklist

Image previews of the three pages of my checklist are shown below. Download the Google doc here, or you can also download a PDF version directly here.

Of course, this checklist is not a substitute for the current PAPPG, the solicitation, or your sponsored programs office; it is a practical working tool to help you keep track of the details.

If you find this checklist useful and/or you modify it for your own use, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Bonus: I receive a lot of the same questions from junior researchers who are preparing proposals for submission and trying to optimize or prioritize. See my answers below ↴ .

Common NSF Proposal Submission Questions

1. How do I fill out the PI documents for each PI/Co-PI?
   • Each required Senior/Key Personnel document — Biographical Sketch, Current and Pending (Other) Support, Collaborators & Other Affiliations (COA), and Synergistic Activities — has its own formatting and content requirements. The PAPPG includes these details, including a link to a template for the COA — but ask if your institution uses the National Library of Medicine’s SciENcv, which allows delegates to create the documents, enforces the formatting, and obtains formal certification from the PI(s).
2. Can I remove the spacing between headings and paragraphs?
   • Yes, technically the entire proposal can be in single-spaced paragraphs, and your headings can be the same font size as, and in line with, your text. However, think of the document(s) as a user experience for the reviewer. Do you want to deliver a dense wall of text that makes it difficult to chunk and schematize as they read? Use spacing.
3. Do I have to write a Mentoring Plan?
   • Yes, this 1-page (max) document is now required for all NSF proposals that include funding for a postdoctoral researcher or graduate student. Much of this material can be re-used across projects and modified as your mentorship approaches evolve. The NSF PAPPG gives multiple examples.
4. Can I re-use my Data Management and Sharing Plan?
   • This 2-page required document should include the following subsections: data types to be produced in the course of the project; data format standards; data access & protection policies; data re-use and dissemination policies; and data archival storage & access plans. Yes, I find I can re-use much of the structure of my DMP plans, changing the data details for the specific research project as needed.
     • note that a research.gov based tool is coming soon to replace PDF submission!
5. How do I upload the rest of the required documents to the Supplemental Documents section?
   • You must create one PDF of all the additional Supplemental Documents to upload at once. I usually keep the order similar to the order specified in the PAPPG: Mentoring, Data Management, and Letters of Collaboration. For an NSF CAREER proposal, you must also include a 2-page (max) Departmental Letter, which I suggest including at the very beginning of the Letters or at the very end.

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📢 If you are preparing an NSF CAREER proposal, the checklist will help with submission logistics — but the bigger challenge is developing a coherent, transformative, and integrated research and education plan. That is what we work on in my “Write Your (NSF) CAREER” coaching program. We’ll run again in Spring 2027. Join the interest list now to learn more and get a treat: a full copy of my funded CAREER proposal from 2015.

If you find yourself in need of an editor or coach to get your proposal, paper, or other manuscript across the finish line, contact me to chat about my services. 😊