NIH Common Form FAQs

This is most often the result of the investigator having an incomplete SciENcv profile.  Navigate to the investigator's SciENcv landing page (the one from which you click + New Document) and review their Profile.  If you do NOT see the investigator's ORCID iD displayed, the investigator must log into SciENcv, access this screen, next to My Profile click the blue Edit link, and click the link at the bottom of the Edit Profile pop up window to link their ORCID iD [even though/if they have already linked their ORCID iD through Account Settings] and once displayed, click Save.

Once the ORCID iD of the investigator is displaying in their SciENcv profile it should populate on any new documents created.  For any existing documents, the investigator may need to access those, and to the right of Identifying Information, Organization and Location, click the blue Edit link, and click the blue "Link your ORCID iD" link at the bottom Identifying Information, Organization and Location pop up window, and once displayed, click Save.

Please reach out here and a member of the ORA-RMG Disclosures Team will respond to you shortly.  We have been able to assist most investigators that have reached out with account linkage issues.

If you have never accessed SciENcv before:

1. Navigate to the SciENcv login page
2. Click More Options >> other login options >> more login options. Type Stanford and select "Stanford University" to sign as a Partner Organization.  You will be signed in using your Stanford SSO credentials.
3. Click on your username in the top-right corner of the screen. From the ACCOUNT menu that opens, click Account Settings
4. Scroll down to Linked Accounts and click Add Account.  A Link a new 3rd-party account pop-up window will open.  Search for either eRA commons or ORCiD.  Select whichever you would like to link first and proceed with the on screen instructions.  Repeat the Add Account function for whichever account you did not add initially/already.

Note: You MUST link BOTH your eRA Commons account and your ORCID iD account to your SciENcv account to prepare NIH Common Forms.

If you have ever accessed SciENcv before:

1. Navigate to the SciENcv login page and login using the login option you have used before e.g. eRA Commons, ORCiD, NSF/Research.gov, your Stanford SSO etc.
2. Click on your username in the top-right corner of the screen. From the ACCOUNT menu that opens, click Account Settings
3. Scroll down to Linked Accounts and click Add Account.  A Link a new 3rd-party account pop-up window will open.  Search for either eRA commons or ORCiD.  Select whichever you would like to link first and proceed with the on screen instructions.  Repeat the Add Account function for whichever account you did not add initially/already.

Note: You MUST link BOTH your eRA Commons account and your ORCID iD account to your SciENcv account to prepare NIH Common Forms.

NCBI/SciENcv has also created a Linking an ORCiD account to a My NCBI/SciENcv account page with step-by-step screenshots of the above process.

Need further assistance? Please reach out here and a member of the ORA-RMG Disclosures Team will respond to you shortly.  We have been able to assist most investigators that have reached out with account linkage issues

Instructions for delegating SciENcv access are available on the ORA SciENcv Resources page.

Register and manage your ORCID iD

Please submit a HelpSU ticket to the SeRA Support Team by clicking HERE, to request an NIH eRA commons account and/or for Stanford roles to be added to your existing account if you were registered for one at a previous institution.

This most often occurs when on a PI’s main SciENcv screen their profile has not been completed.

Delegates can from their landing page of the given’s PI’s delegated account screen click on the blue Edit link and complete all the fields EXCEPT the ORCID ID linkage.  Only the investigator can do this.

Once the investigator has a complete profile, then for any new documents created the identifying information should populate without the extra rows.

Professional appointments are formal appointments outside of one's primary place of employment that are due to one's professional expertise and generally temporary in nature. Common examples include editorial service for journals, serving on municipal, state, or federal advisory boards, and holding offices in professional societies. Senior/key persons must report on all professional appointments that have been active in the last three years. Professional appointments that concluded more than three years ago are not required to be reported on the NIH Biosketch Common Form but may be included if relevant to the specific application. By contrast, other types of appointments that are typically with one's primary place of employment (i.e., academic and institutional appointments), must be listed for a period that covers the duration of one's professional career. (Reference: NIH CF FAQ)

For any fields that allow narrative (i.e., Personal Statement and Contributions to Science), SciENcv does not support special formatting like italics, bolding, etc.  Users can use all CAPS and/or line breaks.  Please note that line breaks (like spaces) would add into the character count.  Hyperlinks will not be supported. (Reference: NIH CF FAQ)

If your special characters such as Greek characters are rejected, you can spell out each character (e.g., type "omega" instead of "?"). (Reference: NIH CF FAQ)

Only the file name of the PDF may be updated once certified and downloaded from SciENcv. The file name must align with guidance as noted on Format Attachments, File Names.  Do not flatten the PDF once certified and downloaded from SciENcv (unless otherwise noted in the Application Guide or Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) Instructions).

If when you click on the Signature Panel button, it indicates this was generated from ncbi-sciencv-era-prod.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - yes, that is fine. 

Note:  If when viewing an investigator certified biosketch PDF using Adobe Acrobat you do NOT see a blue "At least one signature has problems" banner warning message, you may have accidentally flattened the document, and the investigator will need to redownload a certified, unflattened version.

This most often occurs when on a PI’s main SciENcv screen their profile has not been completed.

Delegates can from their landing page of the given’s PI’s delegated account screen click on the blue Edit link and complete all the fields EXCEPT the ORCID ID linkage.  Only the investigator can do this.

Once the investigator has a complete profile, then for any new documents created the identifying information should populate without the extra rows. 

Consulting activities must be disclosed under the Proposals and Active Projects section of the NIH Common Form for Current and Pending (Other) Support when any of the following scenarios apply:

• The consulting activity will require the senior/key person to perform research as part of the consulting activity;
• The consulting activity does not involve performing research, but is related to the senior/key person’s research portfolio and may have the ability to impact funding, alter time or effort commitments, or otherwise impact scientific integrity; or
• The consulting entity has provided a contract that requires the senior/key person to conceal or withhold confidential financial or other ties between the senior/key person and the entity, irrespective of the duration of the engagement.

Additional guidance for how to disclose Consulting Activities can be found here.

Please refer to Special Instructions for Joint University and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Appointments

It depends.  Please refer to Stanford's Service Agreement Common Forms Disclosure Guidance for when and how service agreements/fee-for-service projects should be disclosed as Current and Pending (Other) Support.

Yes.  The person months entered in the in-kind disclosure should be a reasonable estimate of the amount of time the investigator does and will spend mentoring and overseeing the given externally funded/fellowship funded student or post doc.

In addition to externally funded personnel who benefit an investigator's research, in-kind resources also include when investigators have received "things", including but not limited to: mouse models, tissue samples, reagents, services e.g. sample and data analysis, access to labs and/or equipment outside of SU:

• at no cost that benefit their research and
• said "things" have a value of greater than $5K and
• said "things" do not have a formal/documented effort commitment, but are actively being used that does = a time commitment.
  • If said "things" benefit the proposal being submitted, they should be disclosed in the application’s Facilities and Other Resources as per row 2 of the NSPM-33 Implementation Guidance Pre- and Post-award Disclosures Table.
• If said "things" will not benefit the proposal being submitted and are still being actively used to benefit/advance an investigator's research, they should be disclosed in the investigator’s CPS as In-Kind as per row 3 of the NSPM-33 Implementation Guidance Pre- and Post-award Disclosures Table
  • For the Person Months (PM) reporting of said "things", a 0.01 PM entry may be appropriate if the time the investigator is using the given "thing' is subsumed under the PM reported for any benefiting active projects.  If this is the case, our current recommendation is to indicate in the relevant in-kind “Statement of Potential Overlap” field “Effort Subsumed Under ” as the first text and reference the applicable Research Grant.  Likewise, within the “Statement of Potential Overlap” field for the benefiting research project(s) reference the benefiting in-kind "thing(s)" to cross link the populations.
    • If the time the investigator is using the given "thing' is NOT subsumed under the PM reported for any benefiting active projects, then the PM reported for the in-kind "thing" should be a reasonable estimate of the time the investigator spends and anticipates to spend using the "thing".

Yes, ALL pending and current projects an investigator has MUST be disclosed in their Current and Pending Support under the Proposals and Project section.  The person months listed for all projects should be a reasonable estimate of the time the investigator is and will spend to complete the project even if it is unsalaried and/or was not formally committed to the sponsor, as is often the case for internal University Research Awards, seed grants, projects classified as Other Sponsored Activities (OSAs) e.g. conference grants. Read more about CPS Person Months Reporting Here

No, reporting person months devoted to a proposal or active project that is greater than the amount of investigator salary budgeted or being direct and/or cost shared does NOT represent a [new] cost sharing commitment.

With that being said, all expenditures charged to sponsored projects, including personnel/salary costs, must always be allocable to the given sponsored project and should NEVER be inclusive of time that is being spent on activities other than the given sponsored project being charged in the proportion it is being charged.

• Example: An investigator devotes 90% of their time or 10.8 person months in a year to research, and they have the below 3 projects:
  1. 1 externally funded sponsored research award to which the investigator devotes 10 person months of their time, and this time was budgeted as a direct expense to the project and...
  2. 1 externally funded Other Sponsored Activity award (OSA), e.g., a conference grant, to which they devote 0.4 person months time, and no investigator salary was budgeted nor is being direct charged and/or cost shared, and...
  3. 1 internally funded University Research Award (URA) to which they devote 0.4 person months time, and no investigator salary was budgeted nor is being direct charged and/or cost shared then...
• It would only be allocable and thus allowable to direct charge and/or cost share 10 person months time of the investigator's salary to (#1) the externally funded sponsored research award.  The 0.8 person months of investigator time being devoted to the OSA + URA must be charged to a non-sponsored source of funding, in addition to the 10% of investigator time (1.2 person months) that the investigator devotes to activities other than research.

No!  This is one of the most value add features of SciENcv. Once you create one document type within SciENcv, e.g., a NSF Current and Pending (Other) Support, you can use that existing document and the data within to create and populate similar documents for other sponsors, e.g., an NIH or USDA Current and Pending (Other) Support.

Only the file name of the PDF may be updated once certified and downloaded from SciENcv. The file name must align with guidance as noted on Format Attachments, File Names.  Do not flatten the PDF once certified and downloaded from SciENcv (unless otherwise noted in the Application Guide or Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) Instructions).

If when you click on the Signature Panel button, it indicates this was generated from ncbi-sciencv-era-prod.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - yes, that is fine. 

Note:  If when viewing an investigator certified CPS PDF using Adobe Acrobat you do NOT see a blue "At least one signature has problems" banner warning message, you may have accidentally flattened the document, and the investigator will need to redownload a certified, unflattened version.