How Do I Acknowledge Sources of Funding?

In response to of OSTP’s 2022 Public Access Memo, over the next few years  NIST intends to expand the information we collect for publications (papers, data, code) to include all author and co-author names, their affiliations, all sources of funding (for individuals and for projects), and the date of publication, as well as unique persistent identifiers (PIDs) for authors, institutions/organizations, funders, funding agreements, and associated research outputs as available.  Currently NIST employees and NIST associates are required to obtain and use an ORCID identifier.  PIDs are available from the Research Organization Registry (ROR) for funder and awardee institutions.  Other types of PIDs are being developed. Currently the NIST Publication System is equipped to handle ORCID IDs and Digital Objects Identifiers “DOIs;" additional capabilities will be added over time.

Many publishers already require that funding information be provided at the end of a publication. Publishers usually include this information with the other metadata they associate with the DOI they assign to the publication. Using this data, NIST can track our publications. Publishers do not typically use the affiliation information authors provide on the first page of their paper for this purpose:  authors need to also provide affiliation information in the acknowledgments/funding statement.

Further guidance will be provided as PIDs and systems evolve. For now, this document provides guidance  on how you should acknowledge funding sources.   The requirement to provide a funding statement in publications will likely be incorporated into the NIST Directive system in 2023; The OSTP memo provides that Agencies should complete and publish full policy development for plans to increase access to Federally funded research results by December 31, 2024.  To acknowledge funding sources:

Was the work entirely funded by NIST, e.g., through author (federal employee) salaries?

Say “This research was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416).” Provide all authors’ ORCIDs. Provide DOIs for data and other research outputs associated with the publication

Was the work funded by NIST (e.g., through author salaries) and with Other Agency support?

Say “This research was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416) and Name of Other Agency with ROR under agreement number....” Provide all authors’ ORCIDs. Provide DOIs for data and other research outputs associated with the publication

Was the work funded by NIST and an Associate’s home institution?

Say ”This research was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416) and Name of Other Organizations with their RORs). Person 1 (ORCID) was funded by NIST through agreement number (PID if available) and a research fellowship from [Organization name, RORs) through agreement number (PID if available). Person 2 (ORCID) was funded by NIST through contract number (with PID if available)…”

Provide DOIs for data and other research outputs associated with the publication.

Are there multiple sources of funding, both for individuals and for projects?

Say “This research was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416) (and Name of Other Organizations with their RORs). Person 1 (ORCID if available*) was supported by a graduate fellowship from Organization name (ROR) through agreement number (PID if available).  Persons 2 and 3 (ORCIDs if available) were supported through research fellowships from Organization (ROR) through agreement number (with PID if available)….”

Provide DOIs for data and other research outputs associated with the publication.

To any one of these, also acknowledge use of facilities or resources: 

Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, see guidance provided by CNST at  https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/04/10/CNST_facility_use_non_proprietary_agreement.pdf

NIST Center for Neutron Research, see guidance provided by NCNR at https://www.nist.gov/ncnr/publishing-your-results

NIST’s Research Organization Registry (ROR) Relationships

Example 1:  Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) affiliations and funding statement

Title page includes affiliations as shown below, but information must be repeated in the funding statement. (See “How Do I Show My Affiliation When I Write a Paper?” for more information.)

Latonya Green,^1,2 Samantha Moore,³  and Charles Wilson³

¹PREP Associate, Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO 80305
²Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
³Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO 80305

Funding statement:

This work was supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416).  LG was supported through PREP agreement no. XXX between NIST and the University of Colorado, Boulder (ror.org/02ttsq026).

Example 2

ABC and XYZ thank the Joint Quantum Institute (ror.org/04xz38214) between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416 and the University of Maryland (ror.org/047s2c258) for support through JQI fellowships.

This work was supported by DARPA (ror.org/02caytj08) SAVaNT ADVENT, AFOSR (ror.org/011e9bt93) MURI, ARO (ror.org/05epdh915) MURI, DoE (ror.org/01bj3aw27) ASCR (ror.org/0012c7r22) Quantum Testbed Pathfinder program (Award No. DE-SC0019040) and Accelerated Research in Quantum Computing program (Award No. DE-SC0020312), NSF (ror.org/021nxhr62) QLCI (Award No. OMA-2120757), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416).

Example 3

This document was prepared with support from the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) (ror.org/020hgte69) and the U.S. Department of Energy (ror.org/01bj3aw27) Office of Science (ror.org/00mmn6b08)  HEP User Facility (ror.org/035m6g344). Fermilab is managed by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359.

Additionally, this work was supported by the Physical Measurement Laboratory (ror.org/016s8vs02) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (ror.org/05xpvk416), Q-SEnSE: Quantum Systems through Entangled Science and Engineering (NSF (ror.org/021nxhr62) QLCI Award OMA-2016244), and the NSF (ror.org/021nxhr62) Physics Frontier Center at JILA (ror.org/008hybe55) (Grant No. PHY-1734006).

*As of 7/14/2021, all NIST researchers (and Associates in accordance with their Agreements with NIST) must obtain an ORCID persistent identifier for themselves and include the ORCID PID in their fundamental research communications. See Order 1801.00, Requirement J.