NSF biosketch format and instructions for SciENcv

What the NSF biosketch holds

On November 4, 2026, NSF’s PAPPG page lists PAPPG 24-1 as the current version, for all proposals submitted or due on or after May 20, 2024. The same page says an updated Guidance on Financial Assistance, now in draft, will replace the PAPPG, so read that page before you start. PAPPG 24-1’s chapter II.D.2.h(i) sets out the biosketch, which NSF uses to judge how well qualified each senior/key person is to carry out the proposed work.

Positions outside your primary organization, in the United States or abroad, have a time limit of their own.

Leave out personal information, such as your home address, home phone or email, marital status and hobbies.

The ten products

A product must be citable and accessible. PAPPG’s list includes publications, conference papers and presentations, websites, technologies or techniques, inventions and patents, and other products such as datasets, software, models, curricula and instruments. You decide how to organize the two lists to show you can carry out the project.

Each product needs its full citation: the authors, the title, the date of publication or release, a website URL, another persistent identifier if there is one (a DOI, for example), and other details, such as the journal, volume, issue and pages. Enter N/A in place of any item that does not apply.

For a paper with many authors, you may list one or more of them followed by “et al.”

Synergistic activities and the other documents

Synergistic activities left the biosketch on May 20, 2024 (NSF’s senior/key personnel page). Each senior/key person now lists them in a separate document of up to one page, with up to five distinct examples of the broader impact of their professional and scholarly activities. You save it as a PDF and submit it with the proposal through Research.gov or Grants.gov.

PAPPG’s examples include innovations in teaching and training, research tools, databases for research and education, broadening the participation of groups underrepresented in STEM, international research collaborations, standards development and service to the scientific community beyond your own organization.

Make it in SciENcv

NSF requires SciENcv for the biosketch, and the PDF it makes shows the form version at the bottom of the page. Proposals submitted or due on or after May 20, 2024 need form version v.2024-1, and Research.gov and Grants.gov refuse a biosketch not made in SciENcv in that form version with a compliance error. These steps follow NSF’s SciENcv FAQ.

1. 1

   Sign in. Choose the National Science Foundation option to sign in to SciENcv with your Research.gov credentials, as NSF encourages. You need no separate NCBI account.

2. 2

   Start the document. Select Create New Document and choose NSF Biographical Sketch as the document type. SciENcv selects NIH Biosketch by default.

3. 3

   Fill it in. Link your ORCID iD under Account Settings, then Linked Accounts, to fill in your sketch from ORCID. Drag your products into the order you want, and the PDF keeps that order.

4. 4

   Download and certify. Select Download PDF, and certify the sketch yourself when SciENcv asks. A delegate can create and edit your documents but cannot certify them or download one you have not certified.

5. 5

   Submit it. Add the PDF to your proposal in Research.gov or Grants.gov. You may rename the file, but do not open it and save it again in another program.

SciENcv does not convert a biosketch made in an older form version. When you open one, a warning banner explains how to copy its information into the new version of the form.

Prepare it from your CV in ScienceDex

In ScienceDex’s biosketch, each version follows NIH’s form or NSF’s and keeps its own choices. Set a version’s Agency to NSF for NSF’s form. Your organization, professional preparation and appointments come from your CV, and you choose up to five closely related and five other significant products from the publications in it.

Download Word gives you the form’s parts in PAPPG’s order, from identifying information to the products, each paper cited with its authors, title, journal, year, volume and pages, and its DOI when your CV has one. Check the file, then paste your words into SciENcv, where you pick the same products from My Bibliography or ORCID. There you certify the sketch, and SciENcv makes the PDF.

The file lists every appointment in your CV, however old. Before you paste, check the outside positions in it against PAPPG’s three-year limit above. Add products other than papers, such as datasets, software and patents, in SciENcv.

You can keep up to ten versions, such as one for each proposal.

Faculty privacy sets out who can open your CV.