Becoming a Peer Reviewer for NSF

The success of the peer review process, which enables NSF to make wise investments in all fields of science and engineering research and education, depends on the willingness of qualified reviewers like you to share your time and expertise. Your experience and up-to-date knowledge enables you to provide helpful advice to NSF program officers on the merits of proposals and constructive comments to proposers that strengthen their projects. In making its decisions on proposals, the counsel of these merit reviewers has proven invaluable to the Foundation in the identification of meritorious projects. The Foundation also may ask reviewers to serve on panels, for which NSF pays travel expenses.

To implement peer review, NSF depends upon the reviewer community for nearly 240,000 reviews per year. We try to limit the number of requests made to any single individual, recognizing the many demands our reviewers have on their time. Therefore, NSF strives to increase both the size and diversity of the pool of reviewers to ensure that the NSF merit review process benefits by receiving broad input from a variety of different perspectives. You can help by volunteering to review proposals in your area of expertise.

If you are interested in learning more about how to become an NSF Reviewer, please take a few minutes now to contact NSF. If you need to find the appropriate NSF Program Officer to contact, just go to the NSF Website: www.nsf.gov. Select one of the program areas listed in the pull down menu on the left side of the home page. This will take you to the selected home page of the NSF Directorate or Office. Select the Staff Directory and you will find names of Program Officers by division or programs they manage. You can then send the Program Officer an email with the information indicated above in the paragraph on "How to Become a Reviewer."