National Science Foundation Public Access Policy
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has updated their public access policy for all financial assistance awarded on or after December 8, 2025 and January 22, 2026, as described in Supplement 1 (NSF 26-200) and Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202). These two supplements have implications for how you share research products (i.e., publications and research data) arising from your NSF award.
Financial assistance awarded before December 8, 2025 remains subject to the NSF 24-1 PAPPG.
We will update this page with additional guidance as it becomes available.
How do I comply?
Research Data
Awards before December 8, 2025 | Awards on or after December 8, 2025 / January 22, 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | NSF 24-1 PAPPG | Supplement 1 (NSF 26-200) - Effective 12/8/2025 Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202) - Effective 1/22/2026 |
| Data management and sharing plan (DMSP) | Proposals must include a document of no more than two pages uploaded under “Data Management and Sharing Plan” in the supplementary documentation section of Research.gov. This supplementary document should describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results | Before April 27, 2026: continue to prepare the DMSP as a PDF upload. Beginning April 27, 2026: DMSPs should be created using the tool implemented on Research.gov (more information to come). |
| What to share, when to share, and with whom | Investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections, and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF awards. (From Chapter XI.D.4.) | Data underlying NSF-funded research publications should be shared when the manuscript is published. For all other data created or gathered under NSF awards, researchers are expected to share the primary data, samples, physical collections, software, inventions, curriculum material, and other supporting materials. This should be done at minimal cost and within a reasonable time. |
| Where to share | NSF expects investigators to share their data via a trusted data repository. Guidance about which repository to use varies among directorates, and funding opportunities may specify a particular repository for investigators to use. In addition to the NSF PAR, the Dryad Data Repository is a general purpose repository that accepts data from across disciplines. Please contact the Libraries if you have questions about choosing a data repository. | Requirements generally unchanged, although the NSF encourages investigators to share their data via a repository that adheres to the NSTC's Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research. Please contact the Libraries if you have questions about data repositories. |
| Additional information | Data management and sharing requirements and plans specific to the directorate or other NSF unit relevant to a proposal are available at www.nsf.gov/public-access. | Data management and sharing requirements and plans specific to the NSF unit relevant to a proposal are available on the NSF website. If guidance specific to the unit is not available, then the requirements established in this section apply. Simultaneously submitted collaborative proposals and proposals that include subawards are a single unified project and should include only one DMSP, regardless of the number of non-lead collaborative proposals or subawards included |
| Allowable costs | Cost of documenting, preparing, publishing, disseminating, and sharing research findings and supporting material are allowable charges against the award. (See Chapter X.A.2.c.) | Requirements unchanged. |
| Attribution | Each NSF award contains as part of the award general terms and conditions, an article implementing the recipient obligations regarding the acknowledgement of support. (PAPPG, Chapter XI) | Requirements unchanged for acknowledging NSF support. Note that this requirement also applies to deposited datasets. |
Publications
This applies to peer-reviewed journal articles, papers in juried conference papers, and workshop proceedings. These research products will need to be deposited in the NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR) in order for them to be included as part of the annual project reporting process.
Awards before December 8, 2025 | Awards on or after January 22, 2026 | |
| Guidance | NSF 24-1 PAPPG | Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202) (effective 1/22/2026) |
| How to share | Must be deposited in NSF’s Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR)
| Requirements unchanged. |
| When to share | Publications should be available for download, reading, and analysis within 12 months of publication. | Publications are to be made publicly and freely available at or before the time of publication. A 12-month embargo is no longer allowed. (See additional information below regarding zero-embargo sharing.) |
| What to share | “Either the final printed version or the final peer-reviewed manuscript is acceptable for deposit.” (Chapter XI.D.2.c) Note that this refers to VORs and AAMs, respectively. | Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM): AAMs are the final versions of manuscripts accepted for publication after peer-review in either scholarly journals, juried conference papers, or workshop proceedings. (Note that the AAM differs from the Version of Record (VOR), which is the publisher’s authoritative copy of the paper, including all modifications from the publishing peer-review process, copyediting, stylistic edits, and formatting changes.) |
| Allowable publication costs | Proposal budget may request funds for publication costs, except costs for prior or early publication. | Deposit of AAMs into PAR fulfills NSF’s public access requirements for publications and does not require payment of special fees to publishers or other third parties. Special fees for making published versions of record (VORs) publicly accessible are allowable costs, but such payments are not required for deposits of AAMs in PAR.
|
| Attribution | Unless otherwise provided in the award, the recipient is responsible for assuring that an acknowledgment of NSF support is made: (i) in any publication (including World Wide Web pages) of any material based on or developed under this project through use of the following language: "This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. (NSF award number)." Each NSF award contains as part of the award general terms and conditions, an article implementing the recipient obligations regarding the acknowledgement of support. | Requirements unchanged. |
Zero-embargo sharing (aka Green open access):
- Some journals do not allow zero-embargo deposit of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) for articles that are not published open access.
- Articles published open access (OA) do not have embargo restrictions.
Choosing a publication venue:
Checking embargoes:
- Check publisher/journal embargo policies before submitting your manuscript. Many journal policies can be found on the Jisc Open Policy Finder.
- The Penn State University Libraries maintains a list of zero-embargo publishers.
Finding a publication venue:
- The NC State University Libraries participates in a number of open access agreements that allow campus authors to publish their articles open access without having to pay an article processing charge (APC). Check our Open Access Support webpage for eligibility details.
The NSF FAQ on Public Access provides additional information, but does not yet reflect new information from Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202) on timing.
Metadata and Persistent Identifiers (PIDs or DPIs)
Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202) addresses the use of both Persistent Identifiers (PIDs or DPIs) and metadata.
PIDs:
- If there is already a PID assigned to a resource added to the NSF's Public Access Repository (PAR) (e.g., a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) assigned to a publication's Version of Record (VOR)), that PID should be included in the PAR record
- Researchers should deposit datasets in online repositories that assign PIDs (e.g. Datacite DOIs)
- For resources uploaded to PAR that do not have a PID, a minimal set of descriptive metadata (see section below) should be manually supplied
- Once a resource has been deposited to PAR, it will be assigned a PARID that also functions as a PID
- ORCIDs: Like the NIH, NSF encourages all senior and key personnel named in grants to link their eRA profiles with a free, uniquely assigned ORCID ID (learn more about ORCID identifiers). Senior and key personnel will use their ORCID in SciENcv to submit Common Forms and NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.
Metadata:
- Both Author Accepted Manuscripts and datasets should have at least the minimum set of descriptive metadata elements specified in the annual project reporting requirements
- These metadata elements are normally supplied automatically via the PID; if one is not yet available at the time of submission to PAR, metadata must be manually entered.