NSF Funding Profile

The Number of Requests for Funding is a count of all proposals and requests for additional funding on continuing awards. Additional funding on continuing awards is contingent upon availability of funds and whether the results achieved are determined to warrant further support. Dollars Requested includes all dollars associated with the requests for funding.

Total Number of Awards is a count of the awards funded in the fiscal year. It includes both new awards and the second and subsequent years of a continuing award.

Approximately half of the awards that are supported in a particular fiscal year are competitively reviewed in that year through NSF's merit review process. The other awards are continuations of projects that were competitively reviewed in a prior year. The funding rate is the number of competitive awards made during a year as a percentage of total proposals competitively reviewed. It indicates the probability of winning an award when submitting proposals to NSF.

The annualized award size displays the annual level of research grants provided to awardees by dividing the total dollars of each award by the number of years over which it extends. Both the average and the median annualized award size for competitively reviewed awards are shown.

Average duration is the length of the award in years. The duration calculation is limited to research projects and excludes other categories of awards which fund infrastructure-type activities such as equipment and conference awards, which do not require multi-year support.

The Quantitative Data Tables, provided under a separate tab, are based on all proposals and awards, including competitive awards, contracts, cooperative agreements, supplements and amendments to existing grants and contracts.

NSF FUNDING PROFILE

¹FY 2002 and FY 2003 data do not include requests for funding for H-1B scholarship activity.