The U.S. National Science Foundation relies on the judgment of external experts to maintain high standards of program management, to provide advice for continuous improvement of NSF performance, and to ensure openness to the research and education community served by the foundation.
Committee of visitor reviews provide NSF with external expert judgments in two areas:
- Assessments of the quality and integrity of program operations.
- Program-level technical and managerial matters pertaining to proposal decisions.
Committee of visitor reviews are conducted at regular intervals of approximately four years for programs and offices that recommend or award grants, cooperative agreements, and/or contracts and whose main focus is the conduct or support of NSF research and education in science and engineering.
COV records are available for routine inspection and copying, in accordance with 5 USC 1009(b). Please contact cov@nsf.gov for further information.