Biosketch (NIH-style)

The structured biographical document every senior/key person on an NIH grant application must submit. For due dates on or after January 25, 2026, NIH requires it in a new two-part NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form (Professional Preparation, Appointments and Positions, Products) plus a separate NIH Biosketch Supplement (Personal Statement, Honors, Contributions to Science) -- both prepared in SciENcv -- replacing the narrative five-page Section A-D format used since 2015.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 17 Jul 2026

Worked examples

Is an instance

A PI submitting a due-date-2026-02 R01 application prepares a two-part NIH Biographical Sketch in SciENcv: Part 1 (Common Form: preparation, positions, products) and Part 2 (Supplement: personal statement, honors, contributions to science), with an ORCID iD linked to eRA Commons in the Persistent Identifier field.

Is an instance

A US PI on a pre-2026 award describes contributions to science in narrative form, citing up to four supporting papers per contribution, under the older five-page Section A-D format.

The NIH Biosketch is the structured, standardized biographical document every senior/key person on an NIH grant application must submit alongside the science. From 2015 through early 2026 it was a single narrative document, capped at five pages: a personal statement, positions and honours, up to five contributions to science (each with up to four supporting citations), and a research-support disclosure.

The 2026 Common Form transition

For applications and just-in-time submissions with due dates on or after January 25, 2026 (NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-018), NIH replaced that narrative structure with a two-part format built around the government-wide NSPM-33 Common Form that NSF had already required since 2023: Part 1, the NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form (Professional Preparation, Appointments and Positions, and Products — up to five products closely related to the proposed project plus up to five other significant products, with no fixed page cap), and Part 2, the separate NIH Biosketch Supplement (Personal Statement, Honors, and Contributions to Science, each subject to a character limit rather than a page limit). Both parts are prepared in SciENcv rather than as free-form documents. The Common Form’s Persistent Identifier field requires an ORCID iD linked to the applicant’s eRA Commons account, and the form includes a certification regarding participation in a foreign talent recruitment program. NIH’s initial enforcement of the new requirement was warning-only before moving to a hard requirement; the underlying rollout was still being adjusted via follow-up Guide Notices as of mid-2026, so applicants should check the current NIH Guide notice rather than relying on a single fixed date long after this page’s last review.

Why the change

The Common Form structure is shared, in essence, across the federal agencies that have adopted NSPM-33’s standardized biosketch model (NSF since 2023, NIH since January 2026), intended to reduce the duplicate-entry burden on researchers who submit to multiple agencies and to make biosketch data more machine-interoperable via SciENcv.

References

NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-018.
grants.nih.gov ‘Biographical Sketch Format Pages’.
nsf.gov/policies/nspm-33/common-form-biosketch (parallel NSF Common Form structure).

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Biosketch (NIH-style)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch-nih" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch-nih",
  "name": "Biosketch (NIH-style)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch-nih",
  "description": "The structured biographical document every senior/key person on an NIH grant application must submit. For due dates on or after January 25, 2026, NIH requires it in a new two-part NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form (Professional Preparation, Appointments and Positions, Products) plus a separate NIH Biosketch Supplement (Personal Statement, Honors, Contributions to Science) -- both prepared in SciENcv -- replacing the narrative five-page Section A-D format used since 2015.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/responsible-assessment#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch-nih",
  "sameAs": [
    "NIH Biosketch",
    "Biographical sketch",
    "NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form",
    "NIH Biosketch Supplement"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-17T21:17:29",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}