Last verified: August 16, 2026, against the National Science Foundation’s Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide, PAPPG NSF 24-1, Chapter II.D.2.i(i).
Quick answer
If your NSF proposal budgets any funding to support a postdoctoral scholar or a graduate student, you must upload a Mentoring Plan as a supplementary document in Research.gov. It is capped at one page, covers all postdocs and graduate students on the project (you don’t write one plan per person, or a separate plan for postdocs versus students), and it is reviewed under the Broader Impacts merit-review criterion — not filed away unread. There is no NSF-prescribed template or required section headings; the requirement is a statutory content mandate, not a form.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who triggers the requirement | Any proposal that requests funding to support a postdoctoral scholar or a graduate student |
| Page limit | 1 page, uploaded under “Mentoring Plan” in the Research.gov supplementary documentation section |
| Counts against the 15-page Project Description? | No — it’s a separate supplementary document |
| One plan or one per person? | One plan covers everyone; may note how activities differ for postdocs vs. graduate students |
| Collaborative/subaward proposals | One mentoring plan for the whole unified project, not one per organization |
| Reviewed under which criterion | Broader Impacts |
| Statutory basis | America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, §7008(a) — 42 U.S.C. § 1862o(a) |
| Key exception | Not required if the postdoc is listed as Senior/Key Personnel responsible for the project’s scientific/technical direction |
Who has to submit one
The trigger is funding, not job title: any NSF proposal that requests funds to support a postdoctoral scholar or a graduate student must include a mentoring plan, regardless of whether that individual is based at the lead organization, a subrecipient organization, or an organization participating in a simultaneously submitted collaborative proposal. A single project needs only one mentoring plan even if it funds postdocs at multiple institutions.
PAPPG Chapter II.D.2.i(i) carries one specific carve-out: if a postdoctoral scholar is listed in the Senior/Key Personnel section of the budget — meaning they’re responsible for the scientific or technical direction of the project, not just performing supported research — a mentoring plan is not required for that individual.
What must be in it
NSF does not provide a mandated template or fixed set of subheadings for the Mentoring Plan the way it does for, say, the Project Summary’s three labeled sections. The requirement is content-based: in no more than one page, describe the mentoring activities that will actually be provided to every postdoctoral scholar or graduate student supported by the project.
PAPPG Chapter II.D.2.i(i) gives a non-exhaustive list of what counts as a mentoring activity. A compliant plan typically addresses several of these, concretely rather than as a checklist:
- Career counseling — guidance on career paths, including paths beyond the traditional faculty track
- Training in preparation of proposals, publications, and presentations — grant-writing, manuscript, and conference-presentation skills
- Guidance on improving teaching and mentoring skills — including preparing postdocs and senior graduate students to mentor others
- Guidance on collaborating effectively with researchers from diverse backgrounds and disciplinary areas
- Training in responsible and ethical research practices — this dovetails with, but is legally distinct from, NSF’s separate Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) training requirement
Because the list is illustrative rather than a checklist NSF grades line by line, the strongest plans name specific mechanisms — a required individual development plan reviewed at defined intervals, a named departmental or institutional mentoring program, funded travel to a professional-development workshop, a structured teaching-observation program — rather than listing generic aspirations. Reviewers assess the plan under Broader Impacts, so vague language (“postdocs will be mentored appropriately”) reads as weaker than a plan that says what will actually happen and roughly how often.
What a compliant one-page plan looks like
NSF does not publish an official model mentoring plan, and PAPPG deliberately leaves format flexible — do not treat any third-party “NSF mentoring plan example” PDF circulating online as an official template. The structure below reflects the activities PAPPG explicitly names and is offered as an illustrative composite, not an NSF-endorsed form:
- Opening statement (1-2 sentences): who is covered — e.g., “This plan describes the mentoring provided to the postdoctoral scholar(s) and graduate student(s) supported by this award.”
- Professional-development activities: proposal/manuscript/presentation training, conference travel support, teaching-mentoring practice
- Career guidance: individual development plan practice and review cadence, career-path counseling covering both academic and non-academic outcomes
- Inclusive-collaboration and responsible-conduct training: how the project builds skill in working across disciplinary/demographic difference and in ethical research practice
- Structural support: named institutional resources actually available to the trainee (postdoc office, graduate school professional-development center, named mentoring program) rather than restating that “mentoring will occur”
Keep it to what fits naturally in one page at normal margins and font size — PAPPG’s general proposal formatting rules (12-point font minimum, no less than 1-inch margins) apply here as elsewhere in the proposal, and there is no separate word count to hit; the limit is strictly the page.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Why it’s a problem |
|---|---|
| Writing a separate plan per trainee or per institution on a collaborative award | PAPPG requires one unified plan for the whole project — extra documents don’t add compliance, they just aren’t what’s asked for |
| Using the mentoring plan to extend the Project Description | PAPPG explicitly warns proposers not to use it to circumvent the 15-page Project Description limit; keep mentoring content out of the Project Description and mentoring-plan content out of the science narrative |
| Omitting it because postdoc salary is a small line item | The trigger is any funding for a postdoc or graduate student, not a funding threshold |
| Assuming the RECR (Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research) training plan satisfies this requirement | They’re related but separate: RECR training plans are not required to be submitted with the proposal (only made available on request), while the Mentoring Plan is a required upload for every proposal that funds postdocs or graduate students |
| Copying an NIH-style mentoring statement wholesale | NIH’s mentoring expectations (e.g. for K-award candidates) are a different agency framework with different evaluators and criteria — see the comparison below |
How this differs from NIH mentoring documentation
NSF and NIH both expect a mentoring narrative, but the mechanics diverge in ways that matter if you’re moving between agencies:
- Trigger: NSF’s requirement is funding-driven — any proposal that pays a postdoc or graduate student needs one. NIH’s mentoring-plan expectations are mechanism-driven — most prominently for K-series career development awards, where the candidate’s own statement is paired with a separate mentor commitment statement, evaluated as part of the award’s specific review criteria.
- Where it’s reviewed: NSF evaluates the mentoring plan under the Broader Impacts merit-review criterion applied to every proposal. NIH evaluates K-award mentoring documentation as one of several dedicated K-award-specific review criteria, separate from scientific merit.
- Format: NSF caps the mentoring plan at one page with no mandated template. NIH does not mandate a single template either, but K-award mentoring plans commonly run longer and are typically paired with a distinct mentor’s statement — a second, separately authored document NSF’s process does not require.
- Individual Development Plans: NSF’s PAPPG cross-references IDP expectations for postdocs and graduate students in its post-award chapter. NIH separately requires (per NOT-OD-14-113, effective for Research Performance Progress Reports filed on or after October 1, 2014) that awardees describe IDP use for graduate students and postdocs in annual progress reports. Neither agency mandates a specific IDP template.
For the NIH side of mentoring-plan requirements, including K-award mentor statements, see Science Mentorship: NIH Mentoring Plans, K-Awards, and Training Grants.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an official NSF mentoring plan template?
No. PAPPG describes required content and the one-page limit but does not publish or mandate a specific template or set of headings. Any downloadable “NSF mentoring plan template” you find is an institution’s or a third party’s interpretation, not an NSF document.
Does every postdoc on a grant need their own mentoring plan?
No. PAPPG is explicit that separate plans are not required for each postdoctoral scholar or graduate student — one plan covers everyone supported by the project, though it may describe how mentoring differs between postdocs and graduate students if relevant.
Do graduate students trigger the same requirement as postdocs?
Yes. The current PAPPG language covers “postdoctoral scholars or graduate students” together under the same one-page Mentoring Plan requirement — this is not a postdoc-only rule.
What happens if a proposal that funds a postdoc omits the mentoring plan?
The Mentoring Plan is one of several PAPPG-required supplementary documents; proposals are compliance-checked before review, and required documentation that is missing can affect a proposal’s processing. Check your current program solicitation and your institution’s sponsored-programs office for how compliance checks are handled for your specific submission.
Is the mentoring plan reviewed, or just filed for compliance?
It’s reviewed. PAPPG states that mentoring activities provided to postdoctoral scholars or graduate students supported on the project are evaluated under the Broader Impacts review criterion — one of NSF’s two merit-review criteria applied to every proposal.
Does a collaborative proposal need one mentoring plan per organization?
No. For proposals submitted simultaneously by multiple collaborating organizations, or proposals that include subawards, PAPPG treats the collaboration as a single unified project for purposes of the mentoring requirement — one mentoring plan covers the whole project.
Related pages
- How to Write an NSF Project Summary: Overview, Intellectual Merit, Broader Impacts — for the review criterion that actually evaluates your mentoring plan
- NSF Collaborative Proposal Guidelines — for how supplementary documents like the mentoring plan work across a multi-organization submission
- NIH vs. NSF Data Management Plans — the sibling supplementary-document requirement, same Research.gov upload mechanism
- Data Management Plan (DMP)
- Science Mentorship: NIH Mentoring Plans, K-Awards, and Training Grants
- NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Postdoctoral fellowship
- NSF Broadening Participation
- Mentoring agreement
- Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training
Sourced primarily from the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), NSF 24-1, Chapter II.D.2.i(i), fetched directly from nsf.gov/policies/pappg on August 16, 2026. PAPPG is reissued periodically (current edition supplemented by Policy Notices through January 2026 as of this writing) — re-check the current chapter/section numbering against nsf.gov/policies/pappg if citing this page after a new PAPPG edition ships.
