Setting up access to NIH’s Electronic Research Administration (eRA) system is a common early task for a sponsored-programs office, but the process trips people up because it involves two distinct levels of registration — an institution’s own registration with eRA Commons, and the individual accounts created under that institution — and because, unlike many web accounts, an individual cannot simply sign up. This guide walks through both levels: what to check before you start, the exact steps a Signing Official or Account Administrator follows to create a new individual account, and what happens after the account is created.
Two levels of registration, not one
eRA Commons registration happens at two levels that are easy to conflate:
- Institutional registration — the organization itself becomes registered in eRA Commons. This is a one-time event per institution (or per campus/component, for large multi-campus systems), and it produces the institution’s first Signing Official (SO) and Account Administrator (AA) accounts.
- Individual account registration — once an institution is registered, its SO or AA creates accounts for everyone else who needs eRA Commons access: Principal Investigators, other Senior/Key Personnel, trainees, and additional administrative staff. This is the recurring, day-to-day process most people mean when they ask how to “set up an eRA Commons account.”
eRA Commons registration is also a separate system from Grants.gov registration. Grants.gov is the government-wide, pre-submission portal used to find and, for some agencies, submit funding opportunities; eRA Commons is NIH’s own system for account management, application preparation (via ASSIST), status tracking, and post-award reporting. Many institutions need to register with and maintain accounts in both.
Before you start: is your institution already registered?
Most established universities, medical centers, and research institutes that have previously received or applied for NIH funding are already registered in eRA Commons — if your institution has ever had an SO or submitted an NIH application, it is registered, and you should not attempt to re-register it. Check with your sponsored-programs or research administration office first, since a duplicate institutional registration creates confusion NIH’s eRA help desk then has to resolve.
If your organization has genuinely never registered, institutional registration is initiated through eRA Commons’ New Organization Registration process. It requires the organization’s Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) from SAM.gov as a prerequisite, since NIH uses that identifier to establish the organization’s profile, along with basic organizational information (legal name, address, organization type). New institutions should expect to work directly with the NIH eRA Service Desk during this step, and should start it well before any application deadline — it is not something that can be completed same-day. This guide focuses on the far more common case below: creating an individual account within an already-registered institution.
Step-by-step: creating an individual eRA Commons account
This is the process an institution’s Signing Official or Account Administrator follows to set up a new account for a PI, other Senior/Key Personnel, trainee, or additional administrative staff member. (For the full list of who is authorized to do this and what each role can do once the account exists, see eRA Commons Roles.)
- Log in to eRA Commons with your own SO, Account Administrator, Administrative Official, or Business Official credentials — these are the only roles permitted to create new accounts.
- Go to Account Management. From the Commons landing page, select Admin, then Account Management under the Accounts menu.
- Search for an existing account first. Before creating anything, search for the person system-wide (not just within your own organization) to confirm they don’t already hold an eRA Commons ID from a prior institution or a previous role. This step matters: NIH intends each individual to hold a single Commons ID for their entire NIH-facing career, re-affiliated to a new institution when they move rather than duplicated. Creating a second account for someone who already has one is a recurring, avoidable source of administrative cleanup.
- Create the new account. If no existing account is found, select Create New Account and enter the required information: a proposed User ID, the individual’s name, their email address, and their primary organization (this defaults to your own institution).
- Assign the appropriate role or roles. Use the Add Roles function to select the role(s) the account needs — Principal Investigator, a trainee role, Assistant, or an administrative role such as AO, AA, BO, or FSR, depending on what the person will actually do in the system. A single account can hold more than one role.
- Submit the account for creation. Completing this step generates the account and triggers NIH’s system-level provisioning.
- The new user is notified. The individual receives an email with their account details and instructions for setting their own password — account creation does not hand a working password to the administrator; the new user completes activation themselves.
After the account exists: activation and linking
A newly created account is not fully usable until the individual completes activation on their end — following the emailed instructions to set a password and log in for the first time. Once active, new PIs and other Senior/Key Personnel should promptly complete two things that commonly hold up an application later if left until the last minute: filling out their Personal Profile in eRA Commons (institutional affiliation, degree information, and other biographical data used across NIH forms), and linking their ORCID iD to that profile, which NIH now validates for Senior/Key Personnel at application submission.
Common questions
Can I create my own eRA Commons account as a PI?
No. Individual self-registration is not available. Your institution’s Signing Official or an Account Administrator must create the account on your behalf and assign you the Principal Investigator role.
What if I already had an eRA Commons account at a previous institution?
Tell whoever is creating your account at the new institution. The standard practice is to re-affiliate your existing eRA Commons ID to the new organization rather than issue a new one, so your application and reporting history stays attached to a single, continuous account.
How long does it take to get a new account set up?
Once your institution is already registered, an SO or Account Administrator can typically create an individual account and trigger the activation email in a single session; the remaining time depends on how quickly the new user completes their own password setup. Institutional registration (for an organization with no prior eRA Commons presence) takes materially longer and should be started well ahead of any submission deadline.
Do trainees need their own eRA Commons account?
Yes, if they will be appointed on an NIH training or career-development award. Trainees are registered and tracked through eRA Commons’ xTrain module, and can be invited into the system by their supervising PI or created directly by the institution’s SO or Account Administrator.
Is eRA Commons registration the same as Grants.gov registration?
No. They are separate systems run for different purposes — see Grants.gov Registration for how that registration differs and when an institution needs each one.
Related CASRAI resources
- eRA Commons Roles — the full role structure (SO, AO, AA, BO, PI, trainee, and more) assigned during account creation.
- eRA Commons ID — the individual credential an account is built around.
- Grants.gov Registration — the separate, government-wide pre-submission registration process.
- SAM.gov (System for Award Management) — the organizational registration that underlies both institutional eRA Commons and Grants.gov registration.
- Office of Extramural Research (OER) — the NIH office responsible for eRA Commons and NIH-wide extramural policy.
- NIH Grants: An Overview
- Grants Management pillar
