We received the following information about exclusive use of NSF Fastlane for

NSF proposal submissions (effective May 22, 2009).

Dear Colleagues:

Due to an expected increase in Grants.gov submissions relating to the processing of Recovery Act proposals, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has authorized agencies to use alternative methods for proposal submission and acceptance. As you know, NSF is able to accept directly its full complement of proposals, both regular submissions and those additional proposals anticipated under the Recovery Act, using our long-established FastLane capabilities for proposal submission and acceptance. Therefore, in order to assist Grants.gov in the effort to alleviate system strain and increase system capacity, proposers will now be required to prepare and submit proposals to NSF through use of the NSF FastLane system.

Effective immediately, new funding opportunities issued by NSF will exclusively require the use of FastLane to prepare and submit proposals. In addition, NSF plans to revise existing funding opportunity documents to reflect this change and to remove all active application packages from Grants.gov APPLY. NSF will continue to post information about available funding opportunities to Grants.gov FIND. 

Detailed instructions regarding the technical aspects of proposal preparation and submission via FastLane are available at: http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/.

If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact the Policy Office on 703.292.8243 or by e-mail to policy@nsf.gov.

Best,

Jean Feldman
Head, Policy Office
Division of Institution & Award Support
Office of Budget, Finance & Award Management