NSF-PAR (the NSF Public Access Repository) is the National Science Foundation’s mandatory repository, hosted at par.nsf.gov, for peer-reviewed publications and juried conference papers from NSF-funded research. Deposit is required under the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), and recent policy moved eligible outputs to zero-embargo public release.
What NSF-PAR is, operationally
NSF-PAR is NSF’s own institutional repository for publication outputs — it is not a generalist or disciplinary data repository, and it does not hold research data itself (data sharing is addressed separately, through NSF’s Data Management and Sharing Plan requirements; see below). An item is a genuine NSF-PAR deposit when all of the following are true:
- It is a peer-reviewed journal article or a juried conference paper.
- It reports on research supported, in whole or part, by an NSF award.
- The underlying award resulted from a proposal submitted, or due, on or after January 25, 2016 (NSF’s original public access requirement date).
- The Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) — the peer-reviewed, author-formatted version after review but before publisher copyediting/typesetting — or, where permitted, the Version of Record (VoR), has been deposited with the required metadata via par.nsf.gov or Research.gov.
Not a genuine NSF-PAR deposit: a preprint deposited before peer review, a dataset (governed by NSF’s Data Management Plan (DMP) requirements instead), or a publication from an award whose proposal predates the January 25, 2016 requirement.
The two governing policy documents
NSF’s public access requirements trace to two documents, both issued in response to federal open-access directives:
- Public Access Plan (2015) — “Today’s Data, Tomorrow’s Discoveries: Increasing Access to the Results of Research Funded by the National Science Foundation.” This established the original deposit mandate and the initial 12-month embargo allowance, implementing the 2013 OSTP memorandum directing federal agencies with significant R&D budgets to develop public access plans.
- Public Access Plan 2.0 (2023) — “Ensuring Open, Immediate and Equitable Access to National Science Foundation Funded Research.” This is NSF’s agency-specific response to the OSTP “Nelson Memo” (August 2022), which directed all federal R&D funding agencies to eliminate the previously standard 12-month embargo and move to immediate, zero-embargo public access.
Deposit timing and the embargo change
Historically, NSF allowed publishers up to a 12-month embargo after the official publication date before the deposited AAM had to be made publicly available through NSF-PAR — individual journals could set a shorter embargo, but 12 months was the ceiling NSF would enforce against. That changed with implementation of PAPPG 24-1 Supplement 2 (NSF 26-202): for financial assistance awards made on or after January 22, 2026, NSF-funded Author Accepted Manuscripts must be deposited into NSF-PAR on or before the official date of publication, with no embargo. This brings NSF in line with the Nelson Memo’s zero-embargo directive, on the same general timeline other federal research agencies (including NIH) moved on. Awards made before January 22, 2026 remain subject to the earlier 12-month-embargo terms that were in effect when they were issued — check the specific award’s terms and conditions rather than assuming the new rule applies retroactively.
The same PAPPG 24-1 Supplement 2 update also introduced PAR IDs designed to function as persistent identifiers (similar in purpose to a DOI) for deposited works, and expanded NSF-PAR to accept machine-readable XML alongside PDF, intended to make deposited publications easier to harvest, cite, and text-mine.
How NSF-PAR differs from NIH’s mechanism (PubMed Central)
Researchers who hold both NSF and NIH funding sometimes assume one deposit satisfies both agencies. It does not. The two mechanisms are separate systems with separate submission steps:
- NSF-PAR is NSF’s own repository, submission is via par.nsf.gov or Research.gov, and it is scoped to NSF awards only. See NSF PAPPG for the broader policy document that houses this requirement.
- NIH Public Access Policy requires deposit into PubMed Central (PMC), submission is via NIHMS/PMC’s own workflow, and it is scoped to NIH awards only.
An article co-funded by both an NSF grant and an NIH grant must be separately deposited into both NSF-PAR and PMC to satisfy both agencies’ terms and conditions — deposit in one does not automatically satisfy the other, and the two systems do not share submissions between them.
Relationship to NSF’s data-sharing and DMP requirements
NSF-PAR governs publications; it does not govern the underlying research data. NSF’s individual directorates set their own Data Management Plan requirements as a proposal-stage element, and Plan 2.0 further clarified that data, software, and other research products supporting an NSF-funded publication are expected to be made available within a reasonable time and at reasonable cost, consistent with a directorate’s DMP expectations. Depositing a manuscript in NSF-PAR does not, by itself, satisfy a directorate’s data-sharing expectations, and vice versa — treat them as two independent obligations that happen to arise from the same award, the same way NIH’s Public Access Policy and its separate Data Management and Sharing Policy are independent of each other.
Award terms and conditions: why this isn’t optional
NSF-PAR compliance is written into the standard terms and conditions that accompany an NSF award via the PAPPG, not left to individual PI discretion. Institutional research offices and sponsored-programs administrators are generally responsible for monitoring compliance across an award portfolio, since public access requirements are increasingly checked at reporting and closeout, and unresolved noncompliance on public access is the kind of finding that can affect an institution’s or investigator’s standing on future awards. Research administrators supporting NSF-funded PIs should confirm, at award setup, which Public Access Plan version and embargo rule applies (based on the proposal/award date), and build a deposit-tracking step into project reporting rather than relying on the PI to remember at manuscript-acceptance time.
Frequently asked questions
Is NSF-PAR the same thing as PubMed Central?
No. They are separate repositories run by different agencies for different award populations. NSF-PAR serves NSF awards; PMC (via the NIH Public Access Policy) serves NIH awards. A publication funded by both must be deposited into both.
Do juried conference papers need to go into NSF-PAR, or only journal articles?
Both. NSF’s requirement explicitly covers peer-reviewed publications and juried conference papers, not journal articles alone — a distinction that matters in fields like computer science where juried conference proceedings are a primary publication venue.
What is the current embargo period for NSF-PAR deposits?
It depends on the award date. For NSF financial assistance awards made on or after January 22, 2026, there is no embargo — the AAM must be deposited and made public on or before the official publication date. Awards made before that date remain subject to the earlier rule allowing publishers up to a 12-month embargo. Check the specific award’s terms and conditions to confirm which rule applies.
Does depositing in NSF-PAR satisfy my NSF Data Management Plan commitments?
No. NSF-PAR covers publications only. Data-sharing commitments made in a Data Management Plan are a separate obligation, governed by the relevant NSF directorate’s DMP expectations, not by the public access publication requirement.
Who is responsible for NSF-PAR compliance at an institution?
Formally, the PI is responsible for compliance under the award’s terms and conditions, but in practice sponsored-programs and research-compliance offices commonly track deposit status across an institution’s NSF award portfolio, since public access compliance is checked at reporting and can affect future funding eligibility if unresolved.
Related CASRAI resources
- NIH Public Access Policy — the equivalent mechanism for NIH-funded research, via PubMed Central.
- NSF PAPPG — the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide that houses this requirement alongside NSF’s other award terms.
- Data Management Plan (DMP) — the separate, data-focused obligation that runs alongside NSF-PAR’s publication-focused requirement.
- Gold vs Green vs Diamond vs Hybrid Open Access — how NSF-PAR deposit (a green-OA-style mechanism) fits among the broader open access publishing models.
- Open Science — the broader movement NSF-PAR and Plan 2.0 are part of.
- Research Data Management (RDM) hub
