Dear NIH Investigator,
January 1, 2026
NIH announced in NIH’s Implementation of Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support for Due Dates on or after January 25, 2026 that use of the ‘Common Form’ would be required for proposal applications and progress reports (RPPRs) due on or after January 25, 2026 in SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae).
To prepare for this transition, we strongly encourage you to take the initial steps of creating a free Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID ID), and if you already have one, make sure your profile is up to date and linked to your eRA Commons Personal Profile.
Once you have an ORCID ID, you can create a profile in SciENcv. You can use your ORCID profile to populate your NIH Biosketch in SciENcv now, please leave yourself sufficient time before grant submission deadlines to complete this mandatory process. We expect NIH to release the NIH Other Support form and the Biosketch Supplement during the week of December 15, 2025. Please note you will be required to certify your Biosketch and Other Support in SciENcv for all proposal applications, JIT requests and RPPRs that are due on or after January 25, 2026. This certification cannot be delegated and must be done for each submission, although you are able to assign delegates to manage your SciENcv profile.
NOTE: For Training and Center grant applications due on January 25, 2025, NIH published an FAQ stating they will allow the use of the old NIH Biosketch and Other Support form for those applications only. We are currently testing an XML file upload to alleviate some of the manual data entry for Other Support.
Testing is going well, and we hope to have the report available in production by January 12, 2026.
SciENcv has a tutorial available on their website on how to get started. Additional information on how to add a delegate to your profile is available on the OSP website SciENcv and NIH Implementation of the Common Form. If you have any questions on setting up an ORCID ID or creating a profile in SciENcv, please work directly with your department business office and support staff.
To stay informed of NIH updates related to changes to grant application forms, please see NIH’s central webpage Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support. In addition, check out the FAQs for Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support.
As a result of the NSPM-33 memo that requires standard disclosure requirements amongst federal agencies, NSF implemented the mandatory use of SciENcv in October 2023, and we expect other federal agencies to follow NSF and NIH in the near future.
We understand that this new requirement is burdensome, but it is a federal requirement, and we expect that having this data in a centralized location will simplify the process of submitting your Biosketch and Current and Pending Support documents to the funding agencies over time. If you have any questions, please contact OSP Help at osphelp@yale.edu, or Lisa Mosley at lisa.mosley@yale.edu.
Sincerely,
Pamela S. Caudill
Senior Associate Provost for Research Administration
Office of Research Administration