NIH Other Support Template & Rules

NIH investigators and research administrators searching for an “NIH Other Support template” today land in the middle of a genuine transition. The document itself — a full accounting of every resource, financial or in-kind, available to a senior/key person in support of their research — has not changed in substance since NIH expanded its foreign-disclosure requirements in 2021. What has changed is the mechanism: for due dates on or after January 25, 2026, NIH requires the document to be generated as a digitally certified Common Form inside SciENcv, not assembled from a standalone Word template. This guide covers what must be disclosed, how foreign components are documented, who signs and certifies, and the current submission mechanics.

What NIH Other Support actually is

NIH’s own definition is broader than many applicants expect: Other Support — officially the Current and Pending (Other) Support disclosure since NIH adopted the government-wide NSPM-33 Common Form — covers all resources made available to a researcher in support of and/or related to all of their research endeavors, regardless of whether those resources have monetary value, regardless of relevance to the specific project being proposed, and regardless of whether the resource is based at the institution the researcher lists for the current application. That last clause is the one applicants most often miss: a resource does not have to be related to the proposed NIH project to be reportable.

Reportable items include, at minimum:

All active and pending sponsored projects (federal, non-federal, foreign, and domestic), regardless of the source
All positions and scientific appointments, both domestic and foreign, held in the past twelve months or currently held — titled academic, professional, or institutional appointments, whether or not remuneration is received, and whether full-time, part-time, adjunct, visiting, or honorary
In-kind contributions such as office/laboratory space, equipment, or students provided in support of research efforts, whether or not tied to a specific award
Participation in any foreign talent or research program, including compensated or uncompensated appointments with a foreign institution or government-affiliated entity

Other Support is distinct from the NIH Biographical Sketch, which covers career history and up to five significant contributions to science. See NIH Biosketch Worked Example for the companion document, and Current and pending support and Other support (NIH format) for the underlying dictionary definitions this guide expands on.

Where the current template lives

There is no single downloadable NIH Other Support Word or PDF template to fill in by hand anymore for current submissions. NIH’s Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-018 requires the Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support to be generated inside SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae, the NIH/NSF-shared CV tool hosted via My NCBI) as a government-wide NSPM-33 Common Form, for due dates on or after January 25, 2026. This retires NIH’s older, NIH-specific Other Support Format Page as the required submission format going forward. Before generating the form, each individual must have an ORCID iD linked to their eRA Commons account, with that ORCID iD displayed in the Common Form’s Persistent Identifier (PID) field.

This mirrors the path NSF already completed: NSF made SciENcv mandatory for its own Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending Support documents for proposals due on or after October 23, 2023, after offering a SciENcv-or-fillable-PDF choice starting January 30, 2023. NIH’s mandate arrived later and on its own timeline — the two agencies now share the same underlying Common Form structure, which is the entire point of the NSPM-33 harmonization effort, but they reached mandatory SciENcv generation more than two years apart. Do not assume an NSF-style fillable PDF is still acceptable for an NIH submission once the January 2026 date applies; it is not.

The rollout itself was adjusted twice after the initial notice: NIH first ran a warning-only leniency period, extended once by NOT-OD-26-033 (issued February 4, 2026) through May 7, 2026, before NOT-OD-26-079 (issued April 21, 2026) announced that eRA system validations became hard errors — blocking non-compliant submissions outright — starting May 8, 2026. If you are preparing a submission now, treat SciENcv-generated Common Forms as a firm system-enforced requirement, not a recommendation.

Foreign-component and foreign-influence disclosure requirements

The substantive disclosure requirements that make Other Support consequential for research-security compliance trace back to NOT-OD-21-073 (2021), which required the expanded format for due dates on or after May 25, 2021, and for Just-in-Time (JIT) and Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) submissions on or after January 25, 2022. Those requirements carried forward unchanged into the SciENcv Common Form era. In practice, disclosing a foreign component means:

Listing every foreign position and affiliation in reverse chronological order, alongside domestic ones — including affiliations with foreign entities or foreign governments, regardless of whether compensation was received.
Attaching supporting documentation for any foreign appointment or employment held by senior/key personnel: copies of the underlying contract, agreement, or offer letter, appended as part of the same PDF/Common Form package. If the original document is not in English, a translated copy must also be provided.
Disclosing in-kind and financial resources from foreign entities on the same basis as domestic ones — a foreign university providing lab access, students, or equipment is reportable exactly like a domestic collaborator providing the same thing.

For related definitions used across this disclosure, see Foreign component disclosure, Joint appointment (foreign), and In-kind contribution disclosure. These foreign-disclosure obligations sit inside the broader federal research-security framework established by NSPM-33; institutional research-security offices generally treat Other Support as one of the primary operational instruments for implementing that policy at the individual-investigator level.

Certification and signature requirements

Under the SciENcv Common Form process, certification sits with the individual, not solely the institution. Each senior/key person must personally certify their own Current and Pending (Other) Support form inside SciENcv, confirming that the information is current and accurate as of the date of certification, and separately attesting that they are not participating in a malign foreign talent recruitment program. This individual-level certification is a meaningful shift from an older practice, at some institutions, of a sponsored-programs office assembling and submitting Other Support on an investigator’s behalf without a comparable personal attestation built into the form itself.

Because Other Support must be updated whenever circumstances materially change — a new award becomes active, a foreign appointment begins or ends, in-kind support changes — certification is not a one-time event tied only to the initial application. It recurs at Just-in-Time and again at each annual RPPR, and outside of those checkpoints whenever a change occurs that would have been reportable had it existed at the time of the last certification.

When Other Support is submitted

Just-in-Time (JIT): requested for the Program Director/Principal Investigator and other senior/key personnel identified by NIH as the application moves toward funding, before an award is issued.
Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR): updated Other Support is required as an RPPR attachment, reflecting any changes since the last certification.
Mid-project changes: a new active or pending award, a new foreign appointment, or a materially changed in-kind resource should prompt an updated disclosure rather than waiting for the next scheduled checkpoint.

Common mistakes

Reporting only NIH-relevant support. Other Support requires disclosure of all research support regardless of relevance to the specific NIH project — a common and consequential misunderstanding.
Omitting uncompensated or honorary foreign appointments. An honorary, adjunct, or visiting title at a foreign institution is reportable even with no salary attached.
Submitting supporting documentation that isn’t translated. A foreign-language contract or agreement without an accompanying English translation does not satisfy the NOT-OD-21-073 documentation requirement.
Treating institutional assembly as sufficient certification. Under the current SciENcv Common Form, the individual senior/key person certifies the form themselves — a sponsored-programs office compiling the content does not substitute for that personal certification.
Assuming a legacy NIH-specific template still satisfies the requirement. For due dates on or after January 25, 2026, system-level eRA validation (per NOT-OD-26-079) rejects submissions that are not generated as the SciENcv Common Form.

Frequently asked questions

Is NIH Other Support the same as NSF Current and Pending Support?

They now share the same underlying NSPM-33 Common Form structure and are both generated in SciENcv, but they are governed by separate agency policies with separate effective dates and separate certification workflows. Confirm the specific funding agency’s current instructions before assuming a form generated for one agency automatically satisfies the other.

Does Other Support need to be resubmitted if nothing has changed?

It still must be provided at each required checkpoint (JIT, RPPR) even if no substantive change occurred, since the certification itself confirms the information is current as of that date — but the reportable content only changes when an underlying fact changes.

What happens if a foreign appointment is discovered after the fact and wasn’t disclosed?

This is a compliance matter for the institution’s research-security or sponsored-programs office to handle directly with NIH; undisclosed foreign support discovered after certification is treated as a serious compliance issue, not a routine correction.

Do all senior/key personnel need an ORCID iD for this?

Yes — NIH’s Common Forms requirement depends on each individual’s ORCID iD being linked to their eRA Commons account and displayed in the form’s Persistent Identifier field; this is a prerequisite for generating a compliant Common Form in SciENcv.

Related CASRAI resources

References

NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-21-073, “Upcoming Changes to the Biographical Sketch and Other Support Format Page” (2021)
NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-018, “NIH’s Implementation of Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support for Due Dates on or after January 25, 2026”
NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-033, “Adjusted Timeline for NIH’s Implementation of Common Forms” (issued February 4, 2026)
NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-079, “Announcement of Upcoming System Enforcement of Common Forms and End of NIH’s Leniency Period” (issued April 21, 2026)
NIH Grants & Funding, “Other Support” forms directory, grants.nih.gov