Verification note: The current-status claims below (PHS 398’s supersession by SF-424 R&R for electronic submission, and where the “PHS 398” name persists today) were checked 2026-07-17 via NIH’s own grants.nih.gov page titles and form-instruction filenames returned by search (“Instructions and Form Files for PHS 398,” fellowship and training instruction PDFs published under the FORMS-I series, and the career-development instructions PDF), corroborated by CASRAI’s own already-published NIH guides on biosketches, K awards, and modular budgets. grants.nih.gov returned an access error to automated direct fetching this session (a known, recurring pattern for that domain — see this site’s NIH Modular Budgets guide for the same caveat) so specific form-version numbers were not independently re-confirmed against the live page text itself. If a specific form version or OMB expiration date is load-bearing for an actual submission, confirm directly against the current grants.nih.gov instructions or eRA Commons/ASSIST before relying on it.
What PHS 398 originally was
PHS 398 is the name NIH (and other Public Health Service agencies) gave to its original, paper-based grant application kit: a standardized set of forms and instructions, cleared under the Paperwork Reduction Act with its own OMB control number, that an applicant institution filled out and mailed or hand-delivered to apply for a research grant, cooperative agreement, or related award. For most of NIH’s modern history, PHS 398 was “the grant application” in the same way SF-424 is today.
Superseded by electronic submission via SF-424 (R&R)
Starting in the mid-2000s, NIH phased in mandatory electronic submission through Grants.gov and, later, NIH’s own ASSIST and eRA Commons systems, built around the government-wide SF-424 (R&R) (Research & Related) application family rather than the PHS 398 paper kit. By the late 2000s, electronic submission through SF-424 R&R had become the required path for essentially all standard NIH grant mechanisms. For a general orientation to how an NIH application is structured and routed today, see CASRAI’s NIH Grants overview.
That transition means “PHS 398 form” is, for the great majority of applicants, a legacy reference rather than a form they will ever fill out directly. Two things keep the name alive, and it’s worth being precise about which one a given search or instruction is actually pointing to.
What “PHS 398” still refers to today
1. The narrow paper-submission exception
NIH still maintains a PHS 398 instructions page and form set (grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398) specifically for the small number of cases where paper submission is still permitted or required — for example, certain applicants without the eRA Commons/ASSIST access needed for electronic submission, or specific exception mechanisms NIH designates from time to time. This is the literal, still-active “PHS 398 form” in the narrowest sense, but it applies to a minority of applications.
2. PHS 398-named component forms inside the SF-424 R&R package
Far more commonly, “PHS 398” survives as the name of specific NIH-specific supplemental form components that get bundled into the electronic SF-424 R&R application package, rather than as a stand-alone paper form. SF-424 R&R is a government-wide shell; NIH layers its own agency-specific data collection on top of it using forms that still carry the PHS 398 name and numbering lineage, including:
- PHS 398 Cover Page Supplement — NIH-specific applicant/project detail not captured on the generic SF-424 R&R cover page.
- PHS 398 Research Plan — the component that carries the scientific narrative (Specific Aims, Research Strategy, and related attachments).
- PHS 398 Modular Budget — used for most NIH research grant applications requesting direct costs under NIH’s modular threshold; see CASRAI’s NIH Modular Budgets guide for the mechanics.
- PHS 398 Biographical Sketch — NIH’s standardized biosketch format, distinct from a CV; see CASRAI’s NIH Biosketch worked example.
- PHS 398 Career Development Award Supplemental Form — the K-award-specific component layered onto SF-424 R&R for mentored and independent career development mechanisms; see CASRAI’s Career Development (K) Awards guide.
- PHS Fellowship Supplemental Form and PHS 398 Training Budget — used respectively for individual fellowship (F-series, including F31 and F32 NRSA fellowships) and institutional training grant (T-series) applications, which follow their own review criteria and budget conventions rather than the standard modular or itemized research-grant budget. See CASRAI’s NRSA stipend levels entry for the associated funding-level term.
In every one of these cases, the applicant submits electronically through ASSIST, Grants.gov Workspace, or an institutional system-to-system solution, using the SF-424 R&R framework — the “PHS 398” name identifies which NIH-specific component form they’re filling out inside that package, not a separate paper process.
Why the naming still matters to a research administrator
The practical reason this distinction is worth knowing, rather than treating “PHS 398” as pure historical trivia, is that funding opportunity announcements, application guide instructions, and even eRA Commons screens still reference PHS 398 component form names directly (“attach your PHS 398 Research Plan,” “PHS 398 Cover Page Supplement is required”). A research administrator or investigator who only knows “SF-424 R&R” as a single monolithic form can be caught off guard by instructions that assume familiarity with the PHS 398-named subcomponents nested inside it. Reading NIH’s application guide as a layered structure — a government-wide SF-424 R&R shell plus NIH-specific PHS 398-lineage components plus, for some mechanisms, additional agency- or FOA-specific attachments — resolves most of the confusion the “PHS 398 form” search itself usually reflects.
It’s also useful for distinguishing PHS 398 from other NIH-specific documentation that sits outside the application package entirely, such as the NIH Study Section review process that evaluates an application after submission, or post-award reporting like the RPPR, which replaced PHS 398-era paper progress reports for non-competing continuations.
Frequently asked questions
Is PHS 398 still used for NIH grant applications?
Directly, as a stand-alone paper form, only for a narrow set of exception cases. What persists much more broadly is the PHS 398 name attached to specific NIH component forms (Research Plan, Cover Page Supplement, Modular Budget, Biographical Sketch, Career Development and Fellowship/Training supplemental forms) that are submitted electronically as part of the SF-424 R&R application package, not on paper.
What’s the difference between PHS 398 and SF-424 R&R?
SF-424 (R&R) is the government-wide, agency-agnostic application shell used across federal research funding agencies for electronic submission. PHS 398 is NIH-specific: both the name of NIH’s now-largely-retired paper application kit, and the name still carried by the NIH-specific supplemental forms nested inside the SF-424 R&R package today.
Do fellowship (F) and training (T) applications still use PHS 398 forms?
Their NIH-specific components carry PHS 398/PHS-lineage names — the PHS Fellowship Supplemental Form and PHS 398 Training Budget among them — but like every other current NIH mechanism, they are submitted electronically within the SF-424 R&R structure, not as stand-alone paper PHS 398 applications.
Where is the NIH biosketch form’s connection to PHS 398?
NIH’s standard biosketch format is formally the PHS 398 Biographical Sketch — one of the PHS 398-lineage component forms described above. See CASRAI’s NIH Biosketch worked example for a filled-in sample.
