The NIH SciENcv Grace Period Is Over. Is Your Biosketch Ready?

Here's a heads up for researchers applying for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants or administering NIH-funded projects: the familiar old format for NIH biosketches and other support documents will no longer be accepted. Researchers now must use SciENcv (short for Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae) to generate digitally certified Common Forms for new NIH applications, Just-in-Time requests, progress reports, or prior approval submissions.

This is more than a formatting change. A biosketch or other support document that is not generated and certified in SciENcv may now trigger submission errors and could delay, or even stop, an NIH submission. For researchers working close to a deadline, that is not the kind of surprise anyone wants.

The change is part of a broader federal effort to standardize research disclosure forms across U.S. funding agencies. The NIH adopted the Common Forms to make disclosure requirements more consistent and to support greater alignment across federal research sponsors. During the transition, the NIH allowed a leniency period so investigators, administrators, and institutions had time to become familiar with the new SciENcv workflow. That transition period ended on May 7.

For NIH submissions, researchers now need to prepare the following in SciENcv:

1. Biographical Sketch Common Form
2. NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement
3. Current and Pending (Other) Support Common Form

Each document must be reviewed and certified by the individual investigator before submission. This certification step matters. If the downloaded pdf still has a “Draft” watermark, the document is not complete and is not ready to submit. Delegates and research administrators may help prepare the forms, but they cannot certify them on behalf of the investigator.

SciENcv helps researchers create compliant documents without manually adjusting formatting. It connects with My NCBI, ORCID, and eRA Commons, allowing researchers to reuse information across applications and reduce repetitive data entry. Once completed and certified, SciENcv produces the required pdf documents for NIH submission.

What This Means for Researchers

Researchers should take a few minutes now to make sure the basics are in place:

• Log in to SciENcv through My NCBI.
• Link your ORCID iD.
• Confirm that your ORCID iD is connected in eRA Commons.
• Create or update your biosketch and other support documents.

Certify and download the final pdfs from SciENcv.

The best time to check your SciENcv setup is before a deadline is approaching. Updating your profile, connecting accounts, and certifying documents can take time, especially if you are using the new workflow for the first time.

How Rutgers University Libraries Can Help

1 - Browse our research guide.

Visit the NIH Biosketches research guide for resources and tips on building compliant NIH biosketches, importing data from ORCID, and managing multiple biosketch versions for different proposals.

2 - Register for a workshop.

Join the online workshop Using SciENcv to Develop NIH Biographical Sketches on Friday, July 17, from noon to 1 p.m.

3 - Schedule a consultation.

Email ask_research@libraries.rutgers.edu to schedule a consultation with a library specialist. We can help you build an ORCID profile and develop NIH-formatted biosketches using SciENcv.