National Science Board Releases Anticipated Merit Review Report

As previously reported, the National Science Board (NSB), which is the policy-making body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), created a Commission on Merit Review in 2023 to take a fresh look at NSF’s current merit review criteria and make recommendations for potential improvement or modernization. After several delays, the Commission released its report on December 17. The report, Merit Review for a Changing Landscape, contains an in-depth evaluation of NSF’s longstanding review process and makes several recommendations, including:

1. Pursue renaming the “Broader Impacts” criterion to “Societal Benefits.”
2. Maintain the two current review criteria, presently named Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts, refine the definitions of each criterion, and clarify the use of additional review considerations.
3. Emphasize the imperative to both promote the progress of science and engineering and deliver societal benefits from NSF-funded research and education, in accordance with statute.
4. Strengthen the emphasis on expanding participation, including (but not limited to) institution type, geography, demographics, field of expertise, and sector of employment, as permitted by law.
5. Revise NSB’s Merit Review policy to clarify the alignment of award portfolios with agency strategy and outcomes.
6. Update Merit Review policies and processes to strengthen transparency and accountability and promote continuous improvement.

The release of the NSB report comes on the heels of new Merit Review rules that took effect December 15, 2025. Among the changes announced in an internal NSF memo include a reduction in the minimum of outside reviews from three to two and making panel reviews optional. Other changes may conflict with recommendations made in the NSB report. For example, the new policy limits the length of panel summaries to unsuccessful applicants to three to five sentences, while the NSB recommends reviews go into more detail, particularly when rating broader impacts. Another potential area of conflict relates to DEI; the NSB report calls for more attention to broadening participation in STEM while NSF, directed by the Trump Administration, has outlawed (and defunded) grants with specific DEI foci.

While the new NSF policy took effect December 15, the National Science Board states that it is working with the Foundation to implement the recommendations in its report.