NSF requirements

Facilities, Equipment & Other Resources Guidelines

This section of the proposal is used to assess the adequacy of the resources available to perform the effort proposed to satisfy both the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts review criteria. Proposers should describe only those resources that are directly applicable. Proposers should include an aggregated description of the internal and external resources (both physical and personnel) that the organization and its collaborators, and subrecipients will provide to the project, should it be funded. Such information must be provided in this section, in lieu of other parts of the proposal (e.g., Budget Justification, Project Description). 

The description should be narrative in nature and must not include any quantifiable financial information. Reviewers will evaluate the information during the merit review process and the cognizant NSF Program Officer will review it for programmatic and technical sufficiency.

Major sections commonly include:

  • Facilities: any applicable laboratory, clinical, animal, computer, and office facilities/resources.
  • Major Equipment: important equipment available for this project.
  • Other Resources: any other resources available to the project, including support services such as consultants, secretarial, machine shop, and electronics, as well as the following:
  • Unfunded Collaborators: Any substantial collaboration with individuals not included in the budget (a letter of commitment from these collaborators also should be provided).
  • Senior Personnel: If no person months and no salary are being requested for some Senior Personnel, briefly describe these personnel.

GSU maintains a resource of boilerplate text for many campus facilities that researchers can use to compile this section.

Page Limit: None

Resources