This guide shows what an NSF Biographical Sketch actually looks like once it is filled out in SciENcv — a complete, section-by-section illustrative example, annotated to explain what each part is for and what NSF’s reviewers and program officers expect to see there. If you need the definition and mandate history first, see CASRAI’s NSF Biosketch (SciENcv) dictionary entry; this page is the worked-example companion to it.
The example below is an illustrative composite created for this guide. “Dr. Priya N. Kapoor,” “Cascade Polytechnic University,” and every credential, appointment, award, and publication shown are invented for demonstration purposes only — they do not describe any real person, institution, or funded project. Use it to see how the sections fit together and what belongs in each field, not as a template to copy verbatim; your own preparation, positions, and products must be your own and entered directly in SciENcv.
Before the example: what NSF’s Biographical Sketch actually is
Since October 23, 2023, every proposal to the National Science Foundation has been required to generate the Biographical Sketch for each senior/key person through SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae), the web-based authoring tool NSF and NIH jointly operate. A hand-formatted document, or the older NSF fillable PDF, is no longer an accepted substitute. The document itself is built on the NSPM-33 Common Form for the Biographical Sketch — a structure shared, in its underlying fields, with several other federal research-funding agencies — and has six parts: Identifying Information, Organization and Location, Professional Preparation, Appointments and Positions, Products, and Certification. There is no Personal Statement and no narrative “Contributions to Science” essay; those are specific to the separate NIH-style biosketch format and have never been part of NSF’s Biographical Sketch, even before the Common Form standardization. A further format revision (v.2024-1) took effect May 20, 2024, moving Synergistic Activities out of the Biographical Sketch entirely into its own separate one-page document that is uploaded directly, not generated in SciENcv. Full background, mandate dates, and how this compares with NIH’s format are covered in the NSF Biosketch (SciENcv) dictionary entry.
Illustrative worked example: a filled-in NSF Biographical Sketch
Identifying Information
Name: Kapoor, Priya N.
Position Title: Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering
Persistent Identifier (ORCID iD): 0000-0000-0000-0001 (fictional, for illustration)
Organization and Location
Department of Environmental Engineering, Cascade Polytechnic University (fictional), Marrow Falls, State
Professional Preparation
| Institution | Location | Degree | Completion Date | Field of Study |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cascade Polytechnic University | Marrow Falls, State | BS | 05/2011 | Civil & Environmental Engineering |
| Fictional Institute of Water Sciences | Lindmoor, State | PhD | 05/2017 | Environmental Engineering |
| Northbank Research Consortium | Northbank, State | Postdoctoral Fellowship | 08/2019 | Watershed contaminant modeling |
Appointments and Positions
- 2019-present: Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Engineering, Cascade Polytechnic University
- 2017-2019: Postdoctoral Fellow, Northbank Research Consortium, Laboratory of Dr. T. Solberg (fictional)
- 2020-present: Member, Cascade Polytechnic University Institutional Data Governance Committee
Products
Products Closely Related to the Proposed Project (up to five)
- Kapoor PN, Solberg T. Continuous sensor networks for early detection of watershed contaminant plumes. Journal of Environmental Sensing Systems (fictional). 2024;9(2):112-129.
- Kapoor PN, Ibarra M. A low-cost calibration protocol for distributed water-quality sensor arrays. Journal of Environmental Sensing Systems (fictional). 2022;7(4):301-315.
- Kapoor PN. Watershed contaminant sensor calibration dataset, v2.0 (fictional dataset). Deposited in a fictional repository; DOI: 10.9999/example.2024.014.
Other Significant Products (up to five)
- Kapoor PN, Delgado R. Open hardware design for low-power field water-quality sensors (fictional software/hardware product), archived with a persistent identifier.
- Kapoor PN, Ibarra M, Solberg T. Machine-learning anomaly detection for noisy environmental sensor streams. Fictional Journal of Applied Environmental Data. 2021;4(1):55-70.
Note that NSF’s Products section has no fixed page or character limit the way some agencies’ equivalents do — but “up to five” per sub-category is still a hard cap, and it is enforced by SciENcv’s data entry, not by a page count.
Certification
By generating and submitting the document, Dr. Kapoor certifies the information provided is current, accurate, and complete — this is a certification step built into the SciENcv workflow itself, not a separate signature page.
Section-by-section: what each part is actually for
- Identifying Information and Organization/Location exist mainly so the persistent identifier (ORCID iD) resolves correctly and the reviewer can see, at a glance, who this person is and where they currently sit. Get the ORCID iD linked before you generate anything — SciENcv pulls from it to auto-populate later fields.
- Professional Preparation and Appointments establish trajectory and seniority. Reviewers are using this to sanity-check that the applicant’s training and career stage plausibly support the role claimed on the project, not scoring individual entries. Gaps in the record do not need to be explained here — NSF’s Biographical Sketch has no Personal Statement field to explain them in at all.
- Products is where reviewers look for direct relevance to the proposed work. The “Closely Related” vs. “Other Significant” split lets an applicant show both direct preparation for this specific project and broader standing in the field. Because there is no character limit here, the discipline is self-imposed: five strong, clearly relevant entries read better than five padded ones, and a genuine three-item “Closely Related” list is stronger than stretching to five weak matches.
- Certification is not cosmetic. Submitting a Biographical Sketch through SciENcv is an attestation of accuracy and completeness in the same family of research-integrity obligations as Current and Pending (Other) Support disclosures — inaccuracies here carry the same kind of compliance risk as a misstated disclosure elsewhere in the proposal.
Common preparation mistakes
- Submitting the NIH version, or a pre-2023 NSF PDF, by mistake. SciENcv generates agency-specific document types (“NSF Biographical Sketch” vs. “NIH Biographical Sketch” vs. “NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement”) from the same underlying profile. Selecting the wrong module produces a document Research.gov will not accept.
- Including a Personal Statement or Contributions to Science narrative. Neither exists in NSF’s Common Form. If a co-investigator’s boilerplate biosketch text includes either, it is almost certainly adapted from an NIH template and needs to be restructured, not just trimmed.
- Trying to fold Synergistic Activities into the Biographical Sketch. As of the May 20, 2024 revision, Synergistic Activities is a separate one-page document uploaded on its own — it is not a section of the Biographical Sketch and is not generated in SciENcv at all.
- Assuming Collaborators and Other Affiliations (COA) comes from SciENcv. It does not. COA uses NSF’s own required .xlsx spreadsheet template, uploaded directly to Research.gov, and NSF’s guidance is explicit that its content and format must not be altered.
- Padding the Products list. Because there is no character limit, it can be tempting to list marginal or tangential work just to fill all ten slots. Reviewers are assessing relevance and quality, not counting entries.
- Letting the ORCID link go stale. If publications, positions, or a name change since the last time SciENcv synced with ORCID, the generated document can be out of date even though it “looks” complete. Confirm the ORCID iD link and refresh before generating the final PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to use SciENcv to prepare an NSF Biographical Sketch?
Yes. SciENcv has been mandatory for NSF’s Biographical Sketch (and Current and Pending Other Support) since October 23, 2023; the earlier NSF fillable-PDF alternative was retired and Research.gov, the system that absorbed NSF FastLane, no longer accepts it.
Is there a page limit on the NSF Biographical Sketch?
Not a fixed page count the way the pre-2023 format had. The Products section caps at up to five “Closely Related” and up to five “Other Significant” entries, and the other sections are bounded by SciENcv’s own data-entry fields rather than a page count.
Does the NSF Biographical Sketch include a Personal Statement?
No. That is specific to the NIH-style biosketch format. NSF’s Common Form has no equivalent field.
Where do Synergistic Activities go if not in the Biographical Sketch?
As of the May 20, 2024 format revision, Synergistic Activities is its own standalone one-page document, uploaded separately as its own PDF — it is not generated in SciENcv.
Does every senior/key person on an NSF proposal need a Biographical Sketch?
Yes — NSF requires a Biographical Sketch, prepared through SciENcv, for every individual designated as senior/key personnel on a proposal.
Is the NSF Biographical Sketch the same document as the NIH biosketch?
No. They share the same underlying NSPM-33 Common Form architecture and are both produced through SciENcv, but each agency generates a distinct document type with agency-specific certification language, and the two are not interchangeable.
Related CASRAI resources
- NSF Biosketch (SciENcv) — the full definition, mandate timeline, and structure
- NIH Biosketch: Worked Example — the equivalent worked example for NIH’s format
- NIH biosketch vs. UKRI R4RI
- Current and Pending (Other) Support
- How to Apply for an NSF Grant
- NSF Collaborators and Other Affiliations (COA) Template
- Linking ORCID to SciENcv for an NIH Biosketch
- NSF Synergistic Activities
- Grants Management — cluster overview
