Overall, the NSF shows in this report that they've maintained a funding rate of what is currently 23% overall. This varies by directorate with the Geosciences holding the highest rate at 32% and the Engineering Directorate holding the lowest at 19%.
Monthly salary funding for PIs has continued to decline, sitting at an average of .7 months funded for single PIs and .63 months for multiple PIs. To put this in perspective, a decade ago in 2007, the NSF funded on average 1.37 and 1.27 months for single and multiple PIs, respectively.
At the NSF, the vast amount of proposals are reviewed by external reviewers with the exception being EAGER, RAPID, and RAISE proposals that the Program Directors use their discretion in funding. Otherwise, in FY 2017, 68% of proposals were reviewed by a panel only, 24% were reviewed ad hoc and a panel, and 4% were reviewed ad hoc only. A panel refers to a gathering of a small group of external researchers that discuss the merits of multiple proposals at a time. Ad hoc refers to when proposals are sent to external researchers, individually, where the reviewers never get together to discuss the proposals.
The core review criteria for every NSF proposal include intellectual merit understood as the contributions the research will make to its scientific field and broader impact, understood as the larger difference the research will make outside of its direct scientific field.
In terms of the overarching life cycle of grant proposals, along with the timeline, the NSF offers this image:
If you are looking at applying or re-applying to the NSF and want to get a better sense of the agency, I encourage you to review the 2017 report. Also, NSF offers grants conferences that can give you a leg up on applying to the NSF. The next conference is November 18-19 in Boston.
Resources:
Report on the National Science Foundation's Merit Review Process 2017
NSF Grants Conference Website
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