NSF Public Access Overview

Overview

On February 21, 2023, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released Public Access Plan 2.0, which builds upon the 2015 Public Access Plan and outlines steps to make federally funded research publicly accessible without embargo. NSF has since implemented updates to their Public Access Initiative through a series of supplemental policy notices rather than issuing a new plan.

This page provides an overview of the NSF Public Access Initiative, Public Access Plan 2.0, and related supplemental notices.

The NSF Public Access Initiative website outlines information on public access requirements, data management and sharing, the public access repository, and NSF funded projects. Additional information is outsourced into various NSF documents.

Public access requirements are found in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide in the sections on Copyright and Publication/Dissemination of Grant Materials.
- See details on PAPPG on the PAPPG page
Public access plans and information may be found on the NSF Public Access Initiative website
Link to Public Access Initiative website: https://www.nsf.gov/public-access

On February 21, 2023, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released Public Access Plan 2.0, building upon its 2015 Public Access Plan. Key elements of the 2.0 plan are outlined below. Supplemental Policy Notices 1 and 2 further expand upon and implement the public access requirements established in this plan.

Award recipients should continue to make peer-reviewed scholarly publications publicly accessible via NSF Public Access Repository
- Version of records (VOR) or author accepted manuscripts will both satisfy the public access requirements
Awardees will be required to make juried conference proceedings publicly accessible with no cost or embargo period
Public access articles should be in machine-readable formats
Datasets can be made publicly accessible in NSF-PAR, optionally can make datasets accessible and discoverable by recording persistent identifiers
Deposited datasets must include acknowledgement of NSF support, the award number, and appropriate attribution to facilitate reporting

On December 8, 2025 the NSF released a supplemental policy notice 2. This notice outlines new updates to the PAPPG and public access policy that grantees must follow moving forward. The following summarizes changes related to public access outlined in the notice. For additional details the Policy Notice may be found under “Helpful Links” of this page or under the “Tools & Resources” page.

All recipients that received financial assistance awarded on or after December 8, 2025 must ensure the following:

Data management and sharing plans (DMSP)
- Recipients must share all data supporting NSF funded publications at the time of publication.
  - Exceptions must be described and justified in the DMSP
Additional updates were made in this Supplement 1 not noted here as they are not directly related to public access. See the notice for details.

On January 22, 2026 the NSF released a supplemental policy notice 2. This notice outlines new updates to the PAPPG and public access policy that grantees must follow moving forward. The Policy Notice may be found under “Helpful Links” of this page or under the “Tools & Resources” page.

All recipients that received financial assistance on or after January 22, 2026 must ensure the following:

Public access requirements
- Deposit final peer reviewed Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) in the NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) at or before publication.
  - Include deposits in annual project reporting process
  - Fees for making published versions of record (VORs) publicly accessible are allowable
- Make datasets underlying peer-reviewed scholarly publications publicly available as per the Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP)
- Include existing PIDs associated with any public access repository (PAR) entry in the PAR record.
  - If no PID is associated with an item being deposited in PAR, then minimal descriptive metadata should be entered manually
- AAMs and datasets should possess a minimum set of descriptive metadata elements.
  - Those elements are normally supplied automatically via the PID. If a PID is not available at the time of submission to PAR then metadata must be manually entered
- Dissemination and sharing of research results
  - Publicly share primary data, samples, physical collections, software, inventions, curriculum material, and other supporting materials at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time.
  - Release information in a form that protects the privacy of individuals and subjects involved. Exceptions can be requested and must be detailed in the DMSP at the time of original proposal submission.
    - Recipient must get written approval from an NSF program officer to make an adjustment or exception to the DMSP.
  - Data management and sharing plan
    - Proposal must include a DMSP created using the tool on research.gov
      - Per NSF tool will be released April 27, 2026, proposals submitted before this date should be prepared as a PDF upload
    - All data supporting NSF-funded publications must be shared at publication.
      - Exceptions to this must be described and justified within the DMSP
  - Additional updates were made in this Supplement 2 not noted here as they are not directly related to public access. See the notice for details.

Include acknowledgement and disclaimer statements in your manuscript
- Acknowledgment statement:
  - In any publication using the following language
    - “This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. (NSF award number)."
  - Disclaimer statement:
    - “The recipient is responsible for assuring that every publication of material (including World Wide Web pages) based on or developed under an NSF award, except scientific articles or papers appearing in scientific, technical, or professional journals, contains the following disclaimer:
      - Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation."