Illustration of the NSF building against a blue background, with a collage of images including a ship in the Arctic, a molecular structure, a woman in a laboratory, and a lemur

Committees of Visitors

The U.S. National Science Foundation relies on the judgment of external experts to maintain high standards of program management, to provide advice for continuous improvement of NSF performance, and to ensure openness to the research and education community served by the foundation.

Committee of visitor reviews provide NSF with external expert judgments in two areas:

  1. Assessments of the quality and integrity of program operations.
  2. Program-level technical and managerial matters pertaining to proposal decisions.

Committee of visitor reviews are conducted at regular intervals of approximately four years for programs and offices that recommend or award grants, cooperative agreements, and/or contracts and whose main focus is the conduct or support of NSF research and education in science and engineering.

Click on the links below to view reports and related documents for a particular committee.

Engineering (ENG)


Geosciences (GEO)

The Directorate for Geosciences also maintains its own committee of visitors webpage.


Integrative Activities (OIA)


Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS)

The Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences also maintains its own committee of visitors webpage.


STEM Education (EDU)

EDU was formerly the Directorate of Education and Human Resources.