(Updated April 28, 2025)
The Account Management System in Research.gov supports a centralized account registration and profile management process for the research community so that researchers can use a single unique identifier (NSF ID) across all NSF business applications throughout their research careers and self-manage profile information such as demographics. Principal Investigators (PIs), Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Applicants and Fellows, and Administrative and Coordinating Officials are integrated into Account Management and other groups will be added in the future. The Account Management System functionality was expanded to include participants added to NSF panel, site visit, advisory committee, subcommittee, and committee of visitors meetings in March 2023 and ad hoc reviewers in April 2024.
The success of the NSF's peer review process, which enables the agency to make wise investments in science and engineering, depends on the willingness of qualified reviewers to share their time and expertise. Experience and up-to-date knowledge from reviewers in the research community enables helpful advice to NSF program officers on the merits of proposals and constructive comments to proposers that strengthen their projects. In addition to providing a great service to NSF and the science and engineering community, reviewers benefit from reviewing and serving on panels by:
NSF implemented a Volunteer to Review feature in April 2025 so that the research community can sign up to join NSF’s reviewer pool without being invited by NSF program staff to participate in a panel or complete an ad hoc review. Interested researchers can volunteer to review in Research.gov by completing their Reviewer Profile including identifying areas of expertise. Follow the steps in the How to Volunteer to Review Proposals for NSF guide to sign up.
NSF issued Dear Colleague Letter (NSF 25-011) on the mandatory use of multifactor authentication (MFA) for Research.gov sign-in effective on October 27, 2024. For information on completing the one-time MFA enrollment process, signing into Research.gov with MFA, and answers to Frequently Asked Questions, please see the About Signing Into Research.gov page.
Panelists and ad hoc reviewers are strongly encouraged to follow the steps in the end-to end guides to access assigned proposals for review:
Questions? For IT systems-related questions, please contact the NSF IT Service Desk at 1-800-381-1532 (7:00 AM - 9:00 PM ET; Monday - Friday except federal holidays) or rgov@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions should be directed to policy@nsf.gov.