Customer Service Plan August 8, 1995
The National Science Foundation Act of 1950 (Public Law 81-507) sets forth NSF's mission and purpose:
To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense...
The Act authorizes and directs NSF to initiate and support:
B. Customers/Services
NSF has three sets of customers: partner institutions, the policy
community, and the general public.
NSF's partners
NSF carries out its research and education missions by making
grants to partner institutions, such as universities and
schools. Grantees, and potential grantees, are thus the principal
customers of NSF's day-to-day administrative processes. Our
practices and processes should facilitate our partners' activities,
and should not place unnecessary barriers in their way.
Most of NSF's applicants and grantees are found in colleges, universities,
and other non-profit organizations. They include individual scientists,
engineers, educators, and students, as well as institutional officials.
NSF processes also affect private sector organizations, particularly
small businesses. State and local governments participate with
NSF in many programs. Education agencies and schools are our
partners in programs aimed at improvements in teaching and systemic
educational reform.
In carrying out its missions to support fundamental research and
improve science and engineering education, NSF provides the following
services to individuals and institutions:
After the grant is made, NSF provides the following services to
its partners:
The policy community
The science and engineering policy community relies on NSF
as a source of reliable data and analyses. This community
includes officials of Federal, state, and local governments; leader
of business, educational, and international organizations; and
researchers and analysts of business, government, and universities.
To provide information for policy making, NSF obtains and disseminates
data and analyses on the status, needs, and resources of science
and engineering. These include:
Public as a whole
The public as a whole is the ultimate customer for the products
of NSF's investments. The Nation has a direct interest in
how successful the Foundation is in fulfilling its mission. Individuals,
their representatives in Congress, other federal agencies, private
sector businesses and agencies, state and local government agencies,
and policy makers all benefit from the ultimate products of NSF's
programs--knowledge, people, and ideas.
The benefits to the public are diverse. Public spending on fundamental
research is an investment in an expanding knowledge base that
is indispensable to the Nation's long-term economic well-being,
environmental protection, public health, and national security.
NSF's programs provide educational benefits that include improved
teaching of science, mathematics, and engineering. These outcomes
lead to a skilled scientific and technical labor force, a better
educated general work force, and a better understanding of science
by the public. The movement of well-trained students into the
private sector serves as a mechanism for technology transfer that
benefits from the synergy between research and education.
For the benefit of the public as a whole, NSF
C. Priorities for Improving Customer Service
Our service to the general public is largely delivered by our
partner institutions. We are setting goals for that service in
the performance standards we are developing under the Government
Performance and Results Act.
In this customer service plan, NSF focuses on services to customers
of our day-to-day processes and products, including science policy
information. The customer service standards we have set for ourselves
are goals to be met, and do not necessarily represent current
levels of performance. To improve customer service, we will concentrate
on working to meet the standards we have set and to improve our
service effectiveness. On some of the standards, our performance
can be measured internally; in other cases, it will be tested
through surveys. Our customer survey plans focus on learning
from users of NSF services and from NSF employees about how well
NSF meets its customer service standards and what standards are
important to them.
Actions for Better Service
NSF has undertaken a number of actions to improve the handling
of proposals and awards.
In FY 1994, we initiated a program for expanding the use of electronic
media in proposal submission and award processing and administration.
Over the course of the next five years or so, this effort will
reduce the burden for applicants in submitting proposals, provide
applicants with timely information on funding opportunities and
proposal status, reduce the time NSF needs to process proposals,
and facilitate award administration. The new system should ultimately
increase the public's information about awards and project outcomes
and lower the expense to the tax payer for administering proposals
and awards. NSF is working with other federal agencies in developing
this activity, ensuring that the benefits will be felt more broadly.
The immediate goal of NSF's interagency efforts is to develop
a common set of electronic proposal submission forms within a
year or two.
As a first step to full electronic submission of research and
other proposals, NSF is working with sixteen educational institutions
to pilot the following:
To improve the information needed by potential applicants for
the preparation and submission of proposals, NSF also recently
revised and disseminated the Grant Proposal Guide, which
contained an NSF Proposal Forms Kit.
During the upcoming fiscal year, we will initiate a project to
increase the minimum lead time we give applicants between program
announcements and solicitations and proposal due dates. This project
responds to focus group discussions with current and past NSF
awardees. While generally complimentary of NSF proposal processes,
these groups informed us that the lead time between distribution
of program announcements and submission deadlines is often inadequate
to write proposals for new initiatives. In addition, we will
modify our internal processing of proposals to implement a tighter
standard for the time between proposal submission and agency decision
and award dates. In order to improve current telephone service,
we will implement by the end of FY 1996 an automated monitoring
and tracking system to gather data that will be used to identify
the need for further improvements.
Customer Survey Plans
Since its inception, NSF has relied on its partner communities
for their assessments of our administrative performance.
In response to Executive Order 12862, NSF is using its Committee
of Visitors (COVs) as focus groups to obtain information about
satisfaction with NSF processing of proposals and awards. On a
regular basis, these external committees evaluate the substance
and process of our proposal review activities. During May and
June, 1995, ten COVs held open-ended discussions on the services
that were important to them in the proposal and grant administration
process. Their discussions have been helpful in revising the previously
published NSF customer service standards.
Overall, their comments were complimentary. Their major concerns
involved timeliness in communications and proposal processing.
We are in the process of setting up customer service surveys to
obtain information to help us set priorities in meeting the standards.