NIH adopts Commons Forms for biosketch and other support

Effective on or after January 25, 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will implement the Common Forms. A high-level summary of NIH-specific updates follows:

General information

• NIH will require the use of Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae (SciENcv) to complete Common Forms (i.e., Biographical Sketch, Current and Pending (Other) Support) and the NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement to produce digitally certified PDF(s) for use in application submission.
• NIH will require all Senior/Key Personnel to enter their ORCID ID into SciENcv in the Persistent Identifier (PID) section of the Common Forms.
• NIH will require all Senior/Key Personnel to link their ORCID ID to their eRA Commons Personal Profile. For information on linking an ORCID ID to the eRA Commons Personal Profile see the ORCID ID topic in the eRA Commons online help.

Biographical sketch

• NIH will no longer accept the NIH Biographical Sketch format page.
• NIH will require the use of the Common Form for Biographical Sketch.
• NIH will require the use of a new NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement to collect the “Personal Statement,” “Contributions to Science” and “Honors” statements.

Current and pending (other) support

• NIH will no longer accept the NIH Other Support format page.
• NIH will require the use of the Common Form for Current and Pending (Other) Support.

See the NIH Notice of these changes.

- submitted by Corrina L Gross, OSRP

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