RPPR Instructions: How to Complete the NIH Research Performance Progress Report

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. Not every section applies to every RPPR type or activity code, but the core structure is:

• A — Cover Page: basic award and reporting-period identification, auto-populated from eRA Commons award data.
• B — Accomplishments: the narrative core of the report — major goals, what was accomplished during the period, and how results were disseminated.
• C — Products: publications, datasets, software, and other outputs generated under the award, including confirmation that any resulting publications comply with the NIH Public Access Policy via My Bibliography.
• D — Participants: personnel who worked on the project and their level of effort, plus any other collaborating organizations. Only the first subsection here is required on an Interim or Final RPPR.
• E — Impact: the project’s effect on its field, on other disciplines, and, where applicable, on infrastructure, technology transfer, or society.
• F — Changes/Problems: any changes to scope, methodology, human subjects or vertebrate animal protocols, or significant problems encountered. Not required on Interim or Final RPPRs.
• G — Special Reporting Requirements: award-specific items such as human subjects enrollment updates, delayed-onset study data, or foreign-component disclosures.
• H — Budget: for non-SNAP awards and certain other mechanisms, budget detail for the upcoming period. Not required on Interim or Final RPPRs, and not required at all for most standard SNAP awards.
• I — Outcomes: a public, plain-language summary of overall project outcomes. Required only on Interim and Final RPPRs, and published on NIH RePORTER once the report is accepted.

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 using NIH’s Streamlined Non-Competing Award Process (SNAP), the RPPR is typically due by the 15th of the month in which the current budget period ends, while non-SNAP awards generally require earlier submission, often 45 days before the start of the next budget period, to allow time for agency review before funds are released. 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.

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 Submit: eRA Commons and Research.gov

NIH RPPRs are prepared and submitted electronically through the RPPR module in eRA Commons. The PI (or a delegate with the appropriate Commons role) drafts the report content, and the recipient institution’s Signing Official submits the completed report to NIH; institutional sign-off is what formally transmits the report, not the PI’s own save action. 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.

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. An institution managing both NIH and NSF portfolios needs separate tracking for each system’s due dates, role assignments, and section requirements, since the two are not linked or synchronized with one another.

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.

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.