Academic Appointments & Positions (NSPM-33)

Academic appointments and positions per definitions from NSPM-33 guidance from November 2023 hosted on the National Science Foundation (NSF) website. While hosted by NSF, other federal agencies also rely on this definition when it comes to the common forms for the Biographical Sketch and/or Current and Pending or Other support.

Positions that are identified as personnel on research grants and cooperative agreements where the senior/key person is identified as affiliated with an institution of higher education or on an indexed publication. Academic appointments and positions are those defined in institutional policy, and conveyed in a formal manner (e.g., via appointment letter, executed offer letter, employment contract), that relate to research, teaching, or associated scholarly activities at one or more foreign or domestic institutions.

Examples include but are not limited to assistant professor, associate professor, and professor; adjunct and affiliate faculty positions of all ranks; visiting faculty positions of all ranks; visiting scholar or instructor; clinical faculty position of all ranks; lecturer; research faculty position of all ranks; and emeritus faculty position of all ranks.

Also included are graduate research and teaching assistants at the master’s and doctoral level, as well as post-doctoral scholars.

Excluded from this definition are routine academic or university service activities, performed at the departmental, college or institutional level at one’s primary or other collaborating institutions, such as serving on or chairing faculty or staff search committees, graduate student research or thesis committees, compliance committees, ad hoc task forces, graduate and undergraduate studies committees, capital improvement projects, or faculty governance committees.