Effective 5/24/21, the National Science Foundation (NSF) added functionality to enable Principal Investigators (PIs) to remove publications both from the NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR) and from in-progress project reports in the Research.gov Project Reporting System without assistance from the NSF Help Desk (and link to the below message.
Dear Colleagues:
Effective today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) added functionality to enable Principal Investigators (PIs) to remove publications both from the NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR) and from in-progress project reports in the Research.gov Project Reporting System without assistance from the NSF Help Desk. Streamlining this process helps to reduce administrative burden for both PIs and NSF staff and improves NSF-PAR and project report data quality. There are no changes to NSF’s Public Access policy or project reporting requirements.
Here's what you need to know:
NSF-PAR Publication Removals
- Only the PI or co-PI who initially deposited a publication or associated an NSF award to a deposited publication can disassociate an NSF award from a publication in NSF-PAR. Disassociating an NSF award from a publication removes the publication from both the NSF-PAR publicly-facing search and the NSF.gov Award Search for the specific NSF award.
- Removing a deposited publication in NSF-PAR by dissociating the NSF award does not remove the publication from an in-progress project report for the award in Research.gov.
- If an NSF award is disassociated from a deposited publication in NSF-PAR, it can take up to six hours for the update to be reflected in the NSF-PAR publicly-facing search and the NSF.gov Award Search and for visual indicators to appear in project reports reminding the PI or co-PI to delete the publication from the project report.
In-progress Project Report Publication Removals
- Only the PI or co-PI who initially deposited a publication or associated an NSF award to a deposited publication in NSF-PAR can remove the publication from a related in-progress project report in the Research.gov Project Reporting System.
- Publications cannot be removed from approved project reports or from submitted project reports that are awaiting NSF review and approval.
- Removing a publication from an in-progress project report in Research.gov does not remove the publication from NSF-PAR.
- Research.gov processes NSF-PAR publication updates within six hours. After NSF-PAR removal information has been processed in Research.gov, an in-progress project report that still includes a publication removed from NSF-PAR will have a visual indicator reminding the PI or co-PI to delete the publication from the project report.
Training Resources
- A how-to guide with step-by-step instructions for both NSF-PAR and in-progress project report publication removal processes is available.
- Additional training resources are available on the Research.gov About Public Access page and Research.gov About Project Reports page. Please also refer to the NSF Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Public Access for further Public Access information.
Questions? If you have IT system-related questions, please contact the NSF Help Desk at 1-800-381-1532 (7:00 AM - 9:00 PM ET; Monday - Friday except federal holidays) or via rgov@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions should be directed to policy@nsf.gov.
Regards,
Research.gov Team at the National Science Foundation