What is changing? 

• NIH is adopting the Common Forms for the Biographical Sketch to
  • enable greater standardization across federal agencies, and
  • provide clarity regarding disclosure requirements, disclosure process, and expected degree of cross-agency uniformity (details).
• In addition, NIH will collect the Personal Statement, Honors, and Contributions to Science sections on the NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.
• Investigators will be required to use SciENcv to generate an NIH-certified Biographical Sketch on the Common Form and an NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.
  • Both of these are completed in a single user interface within SciENcv.
  • Altering the certified-PDF could result in withdraw of the grant application.

When the change will be implemented?

• It is anticipated that NIH will implement this change in November 2025.
• Preview versions of the Common Form for the NIH Biographical Sketch and NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement are currently available in SciENcv. Note that
  • these are not the final official versions of the forms,
  • the download PDF functionality is disabled, and
  • the forms and data entered into the preview versions will be deleted and no longer accessible once the official NIH Common Forms become available. 

What can I do to prepare for the change? 

• Obtain an ORCID iD
• Link your ORCID iD to your eRA Commons Profile
• Establish a SciENcv profile
• Create an NIH biosketch in SciENcv (note that this will not be on the Common Forms but will make it easier to generate a biosketch on the new Common Forms once that becomes a requirement)

Can I use the Common Form for the Biographical Sketch now? 

No, NIH is not permitting use of the Common Form or Biographical Sketch Supplement before they are officially released (anticipated in November, 2025).