As required by section 3(d) of the "21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act" (21st Century IDEA), this page includes information on key websites and digital services operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) that have been prioritized and targeted for modernization.
On this page
Background
21st Century IDEA requires each federal executive branch agency to provide a prioritized list of the agency's "most-viewed or...otherwise important" public websites and digital services and to estimate the cost and schedule to modernize those sites and services.
Key websites and digital services
NSF has identified the following websites as most utilized by the public and/or important for public engagement, comprising the majority of pageviews to NSF's websites:
- Nsf.gov: NSF's main public-facing website, which delivers news and information to the public regarding research, funding, awards, etc.
- Research.gov: A principal tool used by individuals and institutions to submit grant proposals to NSF, receive grant awards and comply with the terms of those grant awards.
Modernization priorities
Nsf.gov
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, NSF made significant progress in its effort to modernize its primary site, Nsf.gov. As a part of its modernization effort, the site is being migrated to a new content management system (CMS) that uses the U.S. Web Design System. NSF is ensuring that content migrated to the new site (New.nsf.gov) conforms to the requirements outlined in 21st Century IDEA. These include:
- Mobile friendliness.
- Accessibility.
- Consistency of appearance.
- Use of plain language.
- Non-duplicative content that is regularly reviewed and updated.
- An easy-to-use search function.
- Site security.
- User-centered design based on feedback gathered through interviews, usability testing and surveys.
A significant amount of content has been migrated from legacy Nsf.gov to New.nsf.gov, with the new site receiving 36% of the total traffic to the two sites as of the end of FY 2023. Migration of the remaining content from Nsf.gov to New.nsf.gov is expected to be completed in December 2024, when the two sites will be consolidated.
Research.gov
Innovating proposal preparation and submission capabilities and migrating functionality to Research.gov have been a large part of NSF's ongoing information technology modernization efforts to reduce the administrative burden on proposers and awardees and improve system resiliency.
In FY 2023, NSF completed the move of proposal preparation and submission functions from the legacy FastLane system to Research.gov. All NSF proposals must now be submitted to Research.gov or Grants.gov per the instructions for a specific funding opportunity. Additionally, NSF continued modernizing Research.gov webforms, expanding compliance checks to reduce administrative burden and minimize noncompliant submissions, and adding a demo site that allows proposers to become familiar with the submission process. Furthermore, NSF migrated the remaining Post-Award Notifications and Requests functionality to Reseach.gov. Through NSF's modernization efforts, proposers and awardees now access all grants management functions through Research.gov.
In FY 2024, NSF will continue centralizing account registration and profile management processes to reduce further the burden on the research community, panel reviewers and meeting participants and will roll out a new Proposal Evaluation System to replace the legacy FastLane Interactive Panel System.