The document presents initiatives undertaken by the National Science Foundation (NSF), as discussed by representatives from the Council on Governmental Relations and NSF leadership, to address and reduce the administrative burden associated with research proposal preparation and submission. Key efforts are informed by extensive survey data collected from principal investigators (PIs) and sponsored projects offices (SPOs), which highlights principal sources of burden and preferred solutions. Top-ranked options for alleviating administrative workload include prepopulating proposals with existing data, allowing post-submission of certain documents or approvals, distinguishing clearly between solicitation-specific and standard requirement formats, adopting a unified biographical sketch format across federal agencies, and better tailoring proposal interfaces to specific funding opportunities. Furthermore, there is a clear preference for streamlining proposal requirements—such as simplified budgets and phased submissions—improved compliance warnings, and clearer documentation of compliance rules.
In addition to these targeted process improvements, the NSF is working to harmonize and standardize administrative requirements across federal agencies, as seen in efforts like unified progress reporting and revised research terms and conditions. Proposal submission modernization is a multi-year initiative, including migration from FastLane to Research.gov, automation of compliance checking, and enhanced system consistency and support features. Experimental pilots include revised submission windows, simplified budget justifications, joint efforts to reduce compliance burdens on Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), and the elimination of deadlines in select programs, all aimed at increasing efficiency. Collectively, these measures reflect a broad strategy to not only reduce burdensome requirements for individual researchers and institutions but also to ensure that administrative processes facilitate rather than hinder successful proposal compliance and research advancement.
