NIH’s Adoption of Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support by May 25, 2025

NIH Notice NOT-OD-24-163

May 25, 2025 may seem a long way off but NIH wants to give researchers an early notice of this coming change so that they will have time to prepare.

  • 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.

NIH currently plans to continue collecting three required agency specific data elements (i.e., Personal Statement, Contributions to Science, and Honors) to assess qualifications. These data elements will be collected separately from the Common Forms on a new NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.

If the application due date is on or before May 24, 2025, you must continue using the current NIH Biosketch and Other Support format pages for applications, Just-in-Time (JIT) and RPPRs.

NIH Simplified Peer Review Framework

NIH is simplifying peer review for most research project grants (RPGs) for application due dates of January 25, 2025 or later in order to address the complexity of the peer review process and the potential for reputational bias to affect peer review outcomes. 

The Simplified Framework for NIH Peer Review Criteria retains the five regulatory criteria (Significance, Investigators, Innovation, Approach, Environment) but reorganizes them into three factors — two will receive numerical criterion scores and one will be evaluated for sufficiency.

All three factors will be considered in arriving at the Overall Impact score. The reframing of the criteria serves to focus reviewers on three central questions reviewers should be evaluating:  How important is the proposed research, how rigorous and feasible are the methods, and whether the investigators and institution have the expertise/resources necessary to carry out the project.

  • Factor 1: Importance of the Research (Significance, Innovation), scored 1-9
  • Factor 2: Rigor and Feasibility (Approach), scored 1-9
  • Factor 3: Expertise and Resources (Investigator, Environment), to be evaluated as either sufficient for the proposed research or not (in which case reviewers must provide an explanation)

The change to having peer reviewers assess the adequacy of investigator expertise and institutional resources as a binary choice is designed to have reviewers evaluate Investigator and Environment with respect to the work proposed. It is intended to reduce the potential for general scientific reputation to have an undue influence.

NIH – Coming Soon: FORMS-I

Effective for applications submitted for due dates on or after January 25, 2025.

FORMS-I will incorporate updates related to multiple NIH initiatives:

• Improvements to the NIH Fellowship Application and Review Process.

• Updates to NRSA Training Grant Applications.

• Adoption of the Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support for submission of applications and RPPRs by May 2025.

FORMS-I application guide and forms packages will be available in Fall 2024.

Planned Reporting DMS Plan Activities in RPPR

On May 9, 2024, NOT-OD-24-123 informed the extramural community of planned changes to the RPPR to address the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy.

NIH will require progress reports (RPPR) to address NIH DMS activities, including updates on data sharing, repositories, and unique identifiers for data that have been shared.

The updated NIH RPPR Instruction Guide will be posted to the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) page, and NIH plans to implement the new DMS reporting questions for RPPRs submitted on or after October 1, 2024.

NIH Moving to Updated Application Forms

Concurrent with implementation of the simplified review framework, NIH is transitioning to updated application forms (FORMS-I)

  • FORMS-I application forms must be used for applications with due dates on or after January 25, 2025.
  • The updated forms and instructions will be available in the Fall of 2024.
  • See Forms-I Notice (NOT-OD-24-086) for more information

OMB Releases Revisions to Uniform Guidance

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issues guidance regarding government-wide policies for the award and administration of Federal financial assistance, often referred to as the Uniform Guidance. An updated version of this guidance was released in April 2024.  This becomes effective October 1, 2024.

While there are several changes the ones that primarily affect proposal budgeting are listed below:

Calculating Indirect Costs: Definition of Modified Total Direct Cost (MTDC) increases from $25,000 to the first $50,000 of each subaward that recipients can charge indirect costs on. 

De Minimis Indirect Rate: increases from 10% to 15% MTDC, the maximum rate that recipients may use for indirect costs without negotiating an alternative rate with the relevant Federal agency.  If you have a subrecipient that does not have a federally negotiated rate, they can now charge up to 15% MTDC indirect costs.

SRS will provide an update on the revisions to Uniform Guidance as well as other sponsor updates in their May AnSRS4U presentation on May 16 from 10 to 11:00am.   Register for the for Zoom session below:.

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.

When: May 16, 2024 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://tamu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcud-6rpjwrG9NKwWqJXb-uEFL-ONoGe1aX

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

NSF PAPPG NSF 24-1 New Version

NSF has announced that a revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 24-1) has been issued. The new PAPPG will be effective for proposals submitted or due on or after May 20, 2024.

You can review the by-chapter Summary of Changes provided in the PAPPG. NSF presented information about these changes in a webinar on March 12that 2 PM EST. This can be watched on demand at https://nsfpolicyoutreach.com/resources/nsf-proposal-award-policy-updates/

Please note this version of the PAPPG becomes effective on May 20, 2024, in the interim, the guidelines contained in the current PAPPG (NSF 23-1) continue to apply. 

Changes that affect proposal preparation

  • Biographical Sketch(es):  This section has been revised to remove the 3-page limitation for the biographical sketch. There is no page limitation for this section of the proposal.  The Synergistic Activities section has been removed from the biographical sketch. This information must now be submitted by individuals designated as senior/key persons as part of the senior/key personnel documents in Research.gov.
  • Mentoring Plan:  Proposals will require a mentoring plan for postdoctoral researchers or graduate students supported on the project. This page limitation for the Mentoring Plan remains one page.

New checkbox on the Cover Sheet to indicate if there are “Potential Impacts on Tribal Nations.”  NSF will not award projects that may impact Tribal Resources or Interests unless the project has prior written approval from officials designated by the relevant Tribal Nations(s).

New Videos Available at AnSRS4U Express

AnSRS4U Express are short 5-to-7-minute videos on various research topics.   These videos are designed to give you the necessary information in a brief time frame.   Some recent topics that have been added to the TAMU Sponsored Research Services (SRS) webpage are as follows:  

  • Acknowledgement of Federal Funding
  • Is it a Gift or a Grant
  • Incoming Principal Investigator / Sponsored Project Transfers
  • Principal Investigator Departures / Project Transfers
  • Cost Transfers

These are located on the SRS website under the Resources tab at AnSRS4U Express – Sponsored Research Services (tamu.edu)

NSF Requirement for a Safe and Inclusive Work Environment

Effective January 30, 2023, with the implementation of the NSF 23-1 PAPPG, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a new requirement which states that there must be a plan for a safe and inclusive work environment created and distributed to each participant, in advance of departure for an off-campus research activity. Off-campus or off-site research is defined by NSF for this requirement as “data/information/samples being collected off-campus or off-site, such as fieldwork or research activities on vessels and aircraft.”

At the time of proposal submission for each proposal that proposes to conduct research off-campus or off site, the Authorized Organizational Representative must complete a certification that the organization has a plan in place for that proposal.   Thus, prior to the submission of the proposal, Sponsored Research Services (SRS) will require the PI to certify that a plan has been created.  

Several solicitations from the Directorates for Biological Sciences (BIO) and Geological Sciences (GEO) will soon require the submission of a Safe and Inclusive Work Environments Plan that will be considered as part of the Broader Impacts criteria during the review process.

As a reminder, this 2-page supplementary document must address the following four sections:

  1. a brief description of the field setting and unique challenges for the team;  
  2. the steps the proposing organization will take to nurture an inclusive off-campus or off-site working environment, including processes to establish shared team definitions of roles, responsibilities, and culture, e.g., codes of conduct, trainings, mentor/mentee mechanisms and field support that might include regular check-ins, and/or developmental events;   
  3. communication processes within the off-site team and to the organization(s) that minimize singular points within the communication pathway (e.g., there should not be a single person overseeing access to a single satellite phone); and   
  4. the organizational mechanisms that will be used for reporting, responding to, and resolving issues of harassment if they arise. 

SRS has created an optional template that a PI can choose to use as a starting point for the plan.  It is available here.

Cayuse Learning Session Announcement

Cayuse Proposals is a tool that is designed for administrators and/or researchers to use for the preparation of proposals. Some researchers have requested training in order to access the system, upload documents, and in some instances, assist with preparation of their proposals. In response to these requests informational sessions for researchers will be offered.  As always, SRS Proposal Administrators will continue to provide full proposal preparation services. 

Please view the prerecorded session here.