"The NSF spends more than $400million of its $7 billion annual budgetacquiring goods and services insupport of its mission to promotescience and engineering. Much of thisspending involves exploration activitiesin remote locations throughout theworld, such as the Arctic and Antarctic.GAO examined the extent to whichNSF uses key contracting practices inthree phases of the acquisitionprocess: (a) acquisition planning, (b)contract award, and (c) post-awardcontract monitoring. GAO selected andreviewed a nongeneralizable sample of11 contracts or orders with at least $3million in funding obligations for fiscalyear 2011, which accounted for about70 percent of NSF's total contractobligations for that year. Although all11 contracts and orders receivedfunding during fiscal year 2011, somewere awarded more than 7 years ago.Some were awarded more recently.We reviewed each of the 11 contractsto determine the extent to which theyreflected the use of key contractingpractices based on the FederalAcquisition Regulation, our prior work, and NSF-OIG findings. GAO alsoreviewed NSF contracting policies andmet with NSF contracting and programofficials.