For any demographic analysis or comparison, NSF is reliant on the self-reported characteristics of participants in all phases of proposals and awards. Completion of the profiles is voluntary but critical for linking demographic data to proposal, funding, and review patterns. And, importantly, your profile provides the contact information that we use to reach out to you. So if your email address and institutional information are not up to date you may miss out on funding opportunities or critical notifications that affect your eligibility for funding.

So, is your FastLane PI profile complete, up to date, and error-free?

What about your OTHER FastLane profile? When was the last time you completed your Reviewer information?

Yes, that’s right; if you’ve taken part in both sides of the NSF merit review process you have two[i] separate FastLane profiles: one as a PI and another as a reviewer (or panelist).

Across NSF, our community members are pretty good about completing PI profiles (>80% coverage) but are far less likely to complete the profile as a reviewer (<<50% coverage).

As a PI or CoPI, one can update a PI profile in FastLane at any time.

Log in under “Proposals, Awards and Status”

(click images to enlarge)

You can go directly to your PI profile from the first landing page or update the information before starting work on a proposal.

The form itself includes your name, organizational affiliation, contact information, degree information, and demographic characteristics. (Screenshot below from the FastLane online Help guide.)

Before your next application, perhaps right now, please take the time to log in to FastLane and make sure your PI profile is up to date.

Reviewer profiles can only be updated when you log in to complete a review request

(As far as we know, though if you want to take a shot at logging in using a link in an old panel or ad hoc review invitation and find that it does let you access your profile, please tell us so we can update this accordingly.)

Panelists (https://meetings.nsf.gov/jsp/homepage/panelreview.jsp) and individual ad hoc reviewers (https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/jsp/homepage/prop_review.jsp) have separate log-in pages on FastLane.

However, both take you to similar landing pages, and both provide the same options for updating a profile.

(Again, screenshots from the FastLane help guide.)

While you should confirm and take the time to correct any errors in your contact information, the most often missing pieces are demographic. [They’re even incomplete in the above Help Guide images!]

The reviewer demographic form asks the same questions and provides the same response options as the PI profile form.

So please, the next time you review for us, take a moment to complete your profile so we can put some data behind our efforts to make sure our review processes are representative of our communities.

Thanks!

[i] We’ve also noticed that a fair number of you have extra accounts lying around beyond those two; please call the FastLane Help desk to have that fixed.