The Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) is the standardized federal progress-report format that recipients of NIH grants, and of grants from several other federal research agencies, use to document a project’s scientific progress, personnel, products, and compliance with the terms of the award. It replaced agency-specific paper progress reports as part of a government-wide push to standardize post-award reporting, and it is now a required, recurring deliverable for essentially every active NIH grant and for many other federal research awards.
This guide covers what the RPPR is, who has to file one, the three RPPR types and when each applies, the report’s standard sections, submission mechanics, and the compliance mistakes that most often trip up research administrators and principal investigators.
What Is the RPPR?
The RPPR is an electronic report, submitted online rather than as a document upload, that captures a funded project’s accomplishments, personnel changes, products (publications, datasets, software), and any significant changes to the scope or direction of the work, alongside the recipient institution’s ongoing compliance with the award’s terms and conditions. NIH’s Office of Extramural Research administers the RPPR for NIH awards, and the report is filed through eRA Commons, NIH’s electronic research administration portal.
The RPPR format is not exclusive to NIH. It originated as part of a broader federal effort to harmonize progress reporting across research funding agencies, and the National Science Foundation uses a closely related mechanism — also referred to as an RPPR in NSF’s own guidance — submitted through Research.gov rather than eRA Commons. The two agencies’ reports share the same underlying logic (documenting progress, participants, products, and compliance on a recurring schedule) but differ in submission system, exact section structure, and deadline conventions, detailed below.
The RPPR is distinct from a project’s annual report in the generic sense, and from a plain interim report or final report: those dictionary entries describe the general concept of a periodic grant progress report across funders, while RPPR refers specifically to the named federal mechanism, form structure, and electronic submission process used by NIH (and, in adapted form, NSF and other Public Health Service agencies).
Who Must Submit an RPPR
Any institution holding an active NIH grant is required to submit an RPPR for that award, prepared by the recipient institution’s authorized organizational representative on behalf of the principal investigator, with the PI responsible for the scientific content. This applies across the major NIH activity codes — research project grants (R01 and related R-series awards), career development (K-series) awards such as those covered in CASRAI’s Career Development (K) Awards guide and the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, training grants, and cooperative agreements, though the specific sections required can vary by activity code and by whether the award uses NIH’s Streamlined Non-Competing Award Process (SNAP).
Other Public Health Service agencies that fund research using NIH’s grants infrastructure (including, for some award types, agencies such as AHRQ, CDC, and FDA) use the same RPPR module through eRA Commons. NSF-funded projects file the NSF equivalent through Research.gov instead. Because the two systems are not interchangeable, a recipient institution managing a portfolio that spans both NIH and NSF awards needs distinct reporting calendars and login credentials for each.
The Three RPPR Types: Annual, Interim, and Final
NIH’s RPPR guidance defines three report types, and using the correct one for a given award situation is one of the more common points of confusion for new research administrators:
- Annual RPPR — filed for each non-competing continuation year of a project (see continuation award) to report scientific progress, personnel and effort changes, and plans for the upcoming budget period. This is the routine, recurring report most awards file every reporting period.
- Interim RPPR — filed when the recipient has submitted a renewal (Type 2 competing) application on or before the date a Final RPPR would otherwise be due for the current competitive segment. If the renewal is subsequently funded, the Interim RPPR effectively serves as that year’s annual report; if it is not funded, the Interim RPPR converts to the project’s closeout report.
- Final RPPR — filed at the end of a project period as part of grant closeout, alongside the Final Federal Financial Report (FFR) and Final Invention Statement. It reports overall project outcomes in addition to the standard progress content, but does not include a budget or forward-looking plans section. See CASRAI’s Federal Grant Closeout guide for how the Final RPPR fits into the broader closeout sequence.
The Interim and Final RPPR share a narrower section set than the Annual RPPR: only the first Participants subsection is required, the Changes/Problems and Budget sections are omitted, and an Outcomes section — a plain-language public summary, ultimately made available via NIH RePORTER — is required for both.
RPPR Sections, Explained
The NIH and Other PHS Agency RPPR Instruction Guide organizes the report into a standard sequence of lettered sections, A through I. Not every section applies to every RPPR type or activity code — the table below shows what each section covers and which RPPR type(s) require it.
| Section | Name | What Goes In It | Required On |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Cover Page | Award and reporting-period identification, auto-populated from eRA Commons award data. | Annual, Interim, Final |
| B | Accomplishments | The narrative core: major goals, what was accomplished this period, how results were disseminated, and plans for the next period. | Annual, Interim, Final |
| C | Products | Publications, datasets, software, and other outputs, including confirmation that resulting publications comply with the NIH Public Access Policy via My Bibliography. | Annual, Interim, Final |
| D | Participants | Senior/key personnel and other participants, their person-months of effort, and other collaborating organizations. Only subsection D.1 (personnel) is required on Interim/Final. | Annual (full); Interim/Final (D.1 only) |
| E | Impact | The project’s effect on its field, other disciplines, and, where applicable, infrastructure, technology transfer, or society. | Annual only |
| F | Changes/Problems | Changes to scope, methodology, human subjects or vertebrate animal protocols, or significant problems encountered. | Annual only |
| G | Special Reporting Requirements | Award-specific items: human subjects enrollment tables, vertebrate animal use updates, foreign-component disclosures, and (for awards with an RPPR due on or after January 25, 2026) the Section G.1 malign-foreign-talent-recruitment-program (MFTRP) certification. | Annual, Interim, Final |
| H | Budget | Budget detail for the upcoming period, required only for non-SNAP awards and certain other mechanisms. | Annual only, and only where applicable |
| I | Outcomes | A public, plain-language summary of overall project outcomes, published on NIH RePORTER once accepted. | Interim, Final (not required on Annual) |
The Interim and Final RPPR share a narrower section set than the Annual RPPR: only Participants subsection D.1 is required, Impact (E), Changes/Problems (F), and Budget (H) are omitted, and the Outcomes section (I) is required on both Interim and Final but not on Annual.
Person-Months and Effort Reporting (Section D)
Section D.1 requires each senior/key person’s effort expressed in calendar, academic, or summer person-months — not a percentage of full-time effort — matching the convention NIH uses across the application, Just-in-Time, and RPPR stages. A change in a senior/key person’s committed level of effort of 25 percent or more from what was approved (for example, a PI reducing effort from 3 calendar months to 2 or less) generally requires prior approval from the awarding Institute or Center, separate from simply reporting the change in the RPPR; departures or additions of anyone meeting the senior/key personnel definition carry the same prior-approval expectation. Person-months reported in Section D should reconcile with what was disclosed for that individual in Other Support/Current & Pending (Other) Support — a mismatch between the two is one of the more common triggers for a program officer follow-up question.
Other Support and the 2026 Common Forms Requirement
Section D.2 (Other Support) and the related Special Reporting Requirements in Section G are where the NIH Common Forms changes that took effect in 2026 most directly touch the RPPR. Under NOT-OD-26-018, NIH’s standardized SciENcv-generated Common Forms became mandatory for the Biographical Sketch and Current & Pending (Other) Support for due dates on or after January 25, 2026 — see CASRAI’s NIH Biosketch Common Form: What Changed in 2026 and the NIH Other Support Template guide for the format itself. Under NOT-OD-26-079, the leniency period that initially only warned about non-compliant forms ended, and as of May 8, 2026 eRA Commons enforces Common Forms validation as a hard error — a non-compliant Biosketch or Other Support document now blocks submission outright, for applications, Just-in-Time, Prior Approval requests, and RPPRs alike, rather than just flagging a warning. The most common validation failures are an ORCID iD not linked to eRA Commons at all, an ORCID and eRA Commons account that are linked to each other but not both connected through SciENcv, or a Biosketch/Other Support PDF exported from a stale SciENcv session that is missing required metadata despite looking complete on screen.
Separately, for any RPPR due on or after January 25, 2026, each senior/key person must certify their malign foreign talent recruitment program (MFTRP) status annually via a signed statement uploaded as a flattened PDF into RPPR Section G.1 (“Special Notice of Award and Funding Opportunity Announcement Reporting Requirements”), following NIH’s specified per-person naming convention. This RPPR-tied certification is a distinct requirement from the pre-award MFTRP attestation collected through the Biosketch/Other Support Common Forms — an institution should not assume completing one satisfies the other for the same reporting period.
Section G is also where foreign component disclosures belong: any significant scientific element or segment of the project performed outside the United States, whether or not supported with NIH funds, must be reported here, including foreign collaborations not previously disclosed at the application or Other Support stage.
Inclusion Enrollment Reporting
For NIH-funded research involving human subjects, Section G also carries the Inclusion Enrollment Report, a cumulative table of participants enrolled to date broken out by sex/gender, race, and ethnicity, consistent with the NIH Policy on Inclusion of Women and Members of Racial and/or Ethnic Minority Groups. Awards with a planned or actual clinical trial additionally report against the enrollment targets set at the application/Just-in-Time stage, and any substantial deviation from the planned distribution should be explained in the accompanying narrative. Getting this table wrong — stale cumulative totals, mismatched categories from what was approved — is a routine source of program officer follow-up, particularly on multi-site or multi-year studies where enrollment data has to be reconciled across sites before each RPPR is filed.
Submission Timing and Deadlines
Annual RPPR due dates are tied to the award’s budget period and are stated on the Notice of Award. For awards issued under NIH’s Streamlined Non-Competing Award Process (SNAP), the RPPR is due the 15th of the month preceding the month in which the current budget period ends — for example, if the budget period ends November 30, the RPPR is due October 15. For non-SNAP awards, the RPPR is due the 1st of the month preceding the month the budget period ends — October 1 for the same example. Fellowship progress reports are due two months before the next budget period begins. If a due date falls on a weekend or federal holiday, it is automatically extended to the next business day, and an individual Notice of Award can supersede these default dates. The Final RPPR, like other closeout deliverables, is due no later than 120 days after the project period end date, consistent with the standard federal closeout deadline for final reports under 2 CFR 200.344. Source: era.nih.gov, “Initiating the RPPR” (revised June 17, 2026).
NSF’s equivalent annual project report is generally due no later than 90 days before the end of the current budget period, per the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), while the final project report is due within 120 days of the award’s end date — a similar closeout window to NIH’s, despite the different submission system.
Late submission on either system delays processing of continued funding, no-cost extension requests, and, for continuing grants, subsequent funding increments, so RPPR due dates should be tracked on the same institutional compliance calendar as financial reports and effort certifications.
How to Route and Submit an RPPR in eRA Commons
NIH RPPRs are drafted and routed through the RPPR module in eRA Commons, and the routing chain — not just who fills in the narrative — determines whether the report can actually be submitted on time.
Who initiates
Only the program director/principal investigator (PD/PI) or their PD/PI delegate can initiate an RPPR. On a multi-PI (MPI) award, only the Contact PD/PI or the Contact PD/PI’s delegate can initiate it — other MPIs cannot. The RPPR link becomes available in the Status module once the prior year’s Notice of Award has been issued, and for multi-year funded awards it opens two months before the RPPR due date for that reporting year. NIH will not let a new progress report be initiated until any earlier-year RPPR still outstanding on the same award has been submitted.
Routing between reviewers
Once drafted, the RPPR is routed for internal review — typically through department administrators, the sponsored-programs office, and back to the PD/PI — using the Route to Next Reviewer action on the RPPR Menu screen. Each routing step updates the report’s status and its routing audit history, which is visible to everyone with access to that award.
Who submits
Only a signing official (SO) at the recipient institution can formally submit the completed RPPR to NIH. A PD/PI or PD/PI delegate can save, edit, and route the report, but institutional sign-off by the SO is what actually transmits it — the PD/PI’s own save action does not submit anything to the agency.
Fixing a report after it has been routed: the Recall function
If an RPPR was routed to the wrong person, or the current reviewer is unavailable and something in the report needs to change, it can be recalled rather than restarted. The person who performed the routing action can recall it, as can the report’s last reviewer; a signing official or the Contact PD/PI can also recall it, but only while the report is in Reviewer Work in Progress status. A person who has only been delegated the PD/PI role cannot recall the RPPR — that ability sits with the SO and the Contact PD/PI themselves. To recall, open the RPPR Menu screen, click the three-dot ellipsis icon, and select Recall; the status reverts to PD/PI Work in Progress or Reviewer Work in Progress, the reviewer who lost the report receives a notification email, and the person who recalled it becomes the current reviewer with Edit RPPR and Route to Next Reviewer options available again. Source: era.nih.gov, “Initiating the RPPR” and “Recalling the RPPR” (both revised June 17, 2026).
NSF’s equivalent: Research.gov
NSF’s equivalent report is prepared and submitted through Research.gov, using the PI’s and Sponsored Projects Office’s Research.gov roles rather than eRA Commons credentials, and it is not linked or synchronized with eRA Commons in any way. An institution managing both NIH and NSF portfolios needs separate tracking for each system’s due dates, role assignments, and section requirements. Many of NIH’s grant management systems used by sponsored-programs offices integrate with eRA Commons to pull award data and track RPPR due dates alongside other compliance deadlines.
Pre-Submission Checklist
Before routing an RPPR to the signing official for submission, confirm:
- Report type is correct. Annual unless a Type 2 renewal is already pending (Interim) or the project period has ended (Final).
- Section D.1 person-months reconcile with Other Support/Current & Pending (Other) Support for every senior/key person, and any effort reduction of 25% or more has a prior-approval request on file, not just an RPPR note.
- Section C publications are linked in My Bibliography and PMC-compliant — a non-compliant publication can block RPPR acceptance outright.
- Biosketch and Other Support documents are current-format Common Forms generated through SciENcv, with ORCID linked to eRA Commons and connected through SciENcv — non-compliant documents are a hard submission error as of May 8, 2026 under NOT-OD-26-079.
- Section G.1 MFTRP certification is uploaded as a correctly named, flattened PDF for every senior/key person, for any RPPR due on or after January 25, 2026.
- Foreign components are disclosed in Section G, including any foreign collaboration not previously reported at application or Other Support stage.
- Inclusion Enrollment Report is current and reconciled across sites for multi-site human subjects studies.
- Budget (Section H) is included only where applicable — most SNAP awards omit it entirely, and it is never included on Interim or Final RPPRs.
- Routing history is clean — no report sitting in Reviewer Work in Progress with an unavailable reviewer; recall and re-route if needed rather than letting the due date pass.
Common RPPR Compliance Pitfalls
- Filing the wrong report type. Submitting an Annual RPPR when a renewal application is already pending (which should trigger an Interim RPPR instead), or missing that a Final RPPR is required because a Type 2 renewal was not funded, are among the most common process errors.
- Incomplete Products/public-access compliance. Publications listed in Section C that have not been properly associated with the award in My Bibliography, or that are not yet compliant with the NIH Public Access Policy, can hold up RPPR acceptance.
- Under-reporting personnel changes in Section D. Changes in a Senior/Key Personnel’s level of effort, or the departure/addition of a person meeting that definition, require documentation and, in some cases, separate prior-approval requests beyond what the RPPR itself captures.
- Missing Special Reporting Requirements. Section G items — human subjects enrollment tables, vertebrate animal use updates, or foreign component disclosures — are award-specific and easy to overlook if an institution treats the RPPR as a single generic template rather than checking the requirements attached to that specific Notice of Award.
- Treating RPPR and financial reporting as the same deadline. The RPPR documents scientific and programmatic progress; it does not substitute for the Federal Financial Report (FFR) or other financial closeout deliverables, which follow their own schedule and system.
- Late submission near budget-period end. Because SNAP awards tie the RPPR deadline to the budget period’s end date rather than a fixed lead time, institutions that don’t track this on a rolling basis risk missing the window and delaying the next year’s funding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does RPPR stand for?
Research Performance Progress Report. It is the standard federal format NIH (and, in an adapted form, NSF and other agencies) uses for recurring grant progress reporting.
Is the RPPR the same as an annual report?
An Annual RPPR is one of the three RPPR types and functions as the award’s yearly progress report, but “annual report” is also used generically across funders for any yearly progress deliverable. See CASRAI’s Annual report (grant) entry for the general concept as distinct from the RPPR’s specific federal form and submission mechanism.
Who is responsible for submitting the RPPR?
The PI is responsible for the scientific and programmatic content, but the recipient institution’s Signing Official in eRA Commons (or the equivalent Research.gov role for NSF awards) must formally submit the completed report to the funding agency.
Does NSF use the RPPR, or something different?
NSF’s own guidance refers to its annual and final project reports, submitted via Research.gov, using RPPR terminology as well, reflecting the same government-wide progress-reporting standardization that produced NIH’s RPPR. The two systems are separate, however, with different submission platforms, deadlines, and section requirements.
What happens if an RPPR is submitted late?
Late submission can delay processing of continued funding, no-cost extension requests, and, for continuing awards, the release of the next funding increment, so RPPR deadlines should be tracked on the same compliance calendar as financial and effort reporting.
Who can route or recall an RPPR in eRA Commons?
Only the PD/PI or their PD/PI delegate can initiate an RPPR (the Contact PD/PI on multi-PI awards); only a signing official can submit it. A routed report can be recalled by whoever routed it, by the last reviewer, or — while the report is in Reviewer Work in Progress status — by a signing official or the Contact PD/PI. A PD/PI delegate cannot recall a report.
Does the 2026 NIH Common Forms change affect the RPPR?
Yes. Biosketch and Current & Pending (Other) Support documents attached to or referenced from an RPPR must use the current SciENcv-generated Common Forms for due dates on or after January 25, 2026 (NOT-OD-26-018), and as of May 8, 2026 (NOT-OD-26-079) a non-compliant document is a hard submission error, not just a warning. Separately, RPPRs due on or after January 25, 2026 require an annual MFTRP certification uploaded into Section G.1 for each senior/key person.
Does the Final RPPR include a budget section?
No. Sections F (Changes/Problems) and H (Budget) are not part of the Interim or Final RPPR; those reports instead include the Outcomes section (I), a public plain-language summary published on NIH RePORTER.
Last verified against era.nih.gov and grants.nih.gov primary sources: August 16, 2026.
