NSF proposal analytic dataset

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 3 claims (3 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description

An analytic dataset assembled by Fesler et al. from NSF Solr API, Fastlane, Report Server, and program-announcement records to study proposal volume, funding requests, reviewer burden, collaboration, and quality ratings.

Components

• NSF proposal analytic dataset of 648,748 proposals across 836 programs, FY 2009–FY 2021: An administrative dataset assembled from NSF's Solr API, Fastlane database, Report Server, and NSF program announcement publications. After excluding supplements, forward funds, renewals, PI transfers, PAPPG responses, and mis-year proposals, the sample includes "648,748 proposals for 836 programs" out of 781,835 proposals for 921 programs. The synthetic control analytic set further restricted to 468,561 proposals across 194 programs with at least six consecutive years of data. Five outcome variables were constructed: proposal counts, average requested amount, collaborative proposals per project, reviewer counts, and quality rating categories. (Fesler et al. (2022))

Claims

• Exploratory analyses suggest NDL increased requested funding, reduced reviewer burden, and shifted proposal quality ratings for two GEO programs [+W]
• In exploratory synthetic control analyses, two GEO no-deadlines programs received 120 to 130 fewer proposals relative to their synthetic counterfactuals [+W]
• Synthetic control counterfactuals performed poorly for BIO NDL programs because few comparison programs were available [+W]

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• Fesler, Lily and Lindsay Fox. (2022). No-deadlines Synthetic Control and Exploratory Outcomes Analysis and Recommendations for a Future Rigorous Evaluation [Memorandum]. Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/no-deadlines-synthetic-control-and-exploratory-outcomes-analysis-and-recommendations-for-a-future

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	nsf-proposal-analytic-dataset
title	NSF proposal analytic dataset
description	An analytic dataset assembled by Fesler et al.
status	review
moved_from	element/nsf-proposal-analytic-dataset-2009-2021
product_kind	dataset
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — fesler-2022

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