The National Science Foundation (NSF) has posted a revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPP) [NSF 10-1]. The new PAPP Guide will be effective for proposals submitted on or after January 4, 2010 and is available on the NSF website at: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf101>
Notable changes in the PAPP Guide are the implementation of two of the remaining requirements included in the America COMPETES Act: required institutional plans for training in the ethical and responsible conduct of research (RCR) for students (undergraduate and graduate) and postdoctoral fellows; and project outcomes (final) reporting requirements for principal investigators (PIs).
The RCR training requirement was described in a Federal Register notice issued on August 20, 2009 (74FR42126). The addition of the project outcomes reporting is the solution NSF devised to address the requirement to post final reports. As you know, NSF does not have a formal final report but the last annual report has served as final for NSF purposes. The new project outcomes report will be submitted electronically through research.gov