WebJunction

National Science Foundation (NSF) Website

http://www.nsf.gov/

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…"" NSF is "the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing."

While the NSF website does not generally have direct access to the results of the basic research they fund, it is an important website for many science and engineer researchers or anyone interesting in finding out more about scientific research. Access to the majority of the information on the website can be found in the top bar and includes Funding, Awards, Discoveries, News, Publications, and Statistics where one can find out about funding trends, upcoming due dates for scientific proposals, funding opportunities, awardee information, searchable lists of important NSF discoveries, a list of NSF publications (some of which are available for no-fee online), and statistical data and analysis of resources related to science and technology.

The rest of the website contains information related specifically to the agency including About NSF, NSF at a Glance, and the NSF Event Calendar (some of which can also be found in the top bar of the webpage).

The webpage also has a search button to search the entire NSF site on any of its pages (located near the top right hand side of the page).