SF-424 (R&R) Instructions, Form by Form

Verification note: The form-structure and field-level claims below reflect the SF-424 (R&R) application package as documented by Grants.gov’s R&R Family forms repository and NIH’s own SF-424 (R&R) application-guide chapter (grants.nih.gov, “G.200 – SF 424 (R&R) Form”), checked 2026-07-17. Field labels and form-component names are stable across agencies because SF-424 (R&R) is an OMB-cleared, government-wide form family, but individual funding opportunities can mark specific optional components as required — always confirm the exact form set against the funding opportunity announcement itself and the agency’s current application guide before submitting, not against this page alone.

What SF-424 (R&R) is

SF-424 (R&R) — “Research and Related” — is the standard, OMB-approved federal grant application form family used government-wide for research and research-related funding opportunities submitted through Grants.gov. It is one of several SF-424 variants (the plain SF-424, used for non-research federal assistance, and SF-424 Mandatory, used by some agencies for system-to-system submission, are the other two families); “SF-424 (R&R)” specifically is the one research administrators encounter for NIH, NSF, and most other federal research grant applications.

The R&R form family is a shell: a common set of forms every participating agency uses in the same shape, onto which each agency layers its own agency-specific components. NIH’s guide covers this exact structure in CASRAI’s PHS 398 guide — PHS 398-named forms (Cover Page Supplement, Research Plan, Modular Budget, Biographical Sketch) are NIH’s agency-specific layer bundled inside an SF-424 (R&R) package, not a separate submission path. SF-424 (R&R) is what superseded paper PHS 398 submission when NIH moved to mandatory electronic submission in the mid-to-late 2000s; see that guide for the fuller history if “PHS 398” is what brought you here instead.

The SF-424 (R&R) package structure

An SF-424 (R&R) application is not a single form — it is a package of separate form components assembled in Grants.gov Workspace, NIH ASSIST, or an equivalent system-to-system submission tool, then routed through eRA Commons or the equivalent agency system for institutional and applicant review before transmission. The components fall into two tiers:

Government-wide R&R components (used across agencies)

SF-424 (R&R) Cover — the base identifying-information form (see field-by-field breakdown below).
Project/Performance Site Location(s) — where the work will actually be carried out, which can differ from the applicant organization’s address, especially for multi-site or subawarded projects.
Other Project Information — yes/no compliance flags (human subjects, vertebrate animals, environmental impact) plus attachments for the project summary/abstract, project narrative, bibliography, and facilities/resources description.
Senior/Key Person Profile(s) — the PD/PI and other named senior personnel, each with a biosketch attachment and current/pending support information.
R&R Budget (or an agency-specific substitute, such as NIH’s PHS 398 Modular Budget for most modular research grant applications — see CASRAI’s NIH Modular Budgets guide) — itemized or modular direct and indirect costs by budget period.
R&R Subaward Budget Attachment(s) Form — a separate budget justification per subrecipient organization, required whenever the project includes a subaward; see CASRAI’s subaward agreement negotiation guide and the subaward term for how that relationship is structured.
R&R Personal Data — voluntary demographic collection, not scored or used in review.

Agency-specific components layered on top

Each agency adds its own components inside the same package. For NIH, these are the PHS 398-named forms covered in detail in CASRAI’s PHS 398 guide: the Cover Page Supplement, Research Plan (Specific Aims and Research Strategy), and, for career-development and fellowship mechanisms, the Career Development Award Supplemental Form or PHS Fellowship Supplemental Form. NSF, DOE, and other agencies define their own supplemental components under the same R&R shell — the government-wide forms stay constant, but always check the specific funding opportunity’s form set (its “competition ID” or forms package) rather than assuming NIH’s component list applies elsewhere.

SF-424 (R&R) Cover component: field by field

The Cover form is the first component every applicant completes, and most of its fields are consistent across agencies:

Type of Submission — Pre-application, Application, or Changed/Corrected Application.
Type of Application — New, Resubmission, Renewal, Continuation, or Revision, which determines what supplemental attachments (e.g. an introduction/response-to-reviewers for a resubmission) the package expects.
Date Submitted / Applicant Identifier — the applicant’s own internal tracking number, if used.
Federal Identifier — populated by the agency for continuations/renewals of an existing award; left blank on a genuinely new application.
Applicant Information — the legal applicant organization’s name, address, and Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), the SAM.gov-issued identifier that replaced the legacy DUNS number for federal awards. An organization must have an active SAM.gov registration with a valid UEI before it can submit.
Type of Applicant — the organizational category (e.g. public/state institution of higher education, nonprofit, small business) from a standard federal list.
Name of Federal Agency and Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (Assistance Listing) Number and Title — identifies which agency and which funding program the application targets.
Descriptive Title of Applicant’s Project — the project title that will appear on the eventual notice of award and in public award databases if funded.
Proposed Project Start and End Dates — the requested project period, which the reviewing agency may adjust at award.
Congressional District of Applicant (and of the project, if different) — required for federal reporting even though it has no bearing on scientific review.
Project Director/Principal Investigator Contact Information — name, organization, and contact details for the PD/PI of record.
Estimated Project Funding — total federal and non-federal (cost-share) funding requested across the whole project period, which must reconcile with the detailed R&R Budget or modular budget attachments elsewhere in the package. See CASRAI’s cost share (mandatory) and cost share (voluntary) terms if the opportunity requires matching funds, and indirect cost recovery / F&A rate for how the indirect-cost portion of that figure is calculated.
Is Application Subject to Review by State under Executive Order 12372 Process — a state-level intergovernmental review flag that applies in a minority of states/programs.
By signing this application… I certify — the authorized organizational representative’s (AOR) certification, which is what actually transmits the application; an individual PI typically cannot submit without institutional AOR sign-off routed through the sponsored programs office.

How submission actually works

Very few applicants type directly into a bare SF-424 (R&R) PDF form set today. In practice, an institution submits through one of two paths: Grants.gov Workspace, a browser-based collaborative environment where team members complete different forms and the authorized organizational representative submits the assembled package, or an agency-specific system-to-system tool such as NIH’s ASSIST, which performs the same assembly but stays inside the agency’s own ecosystem and routes directly into eRA Commons for institutional and post-submission tracking. Some institutions instead use their own commercial or in-house grants system that submits to Grants.gov programmatically via its System-to-System (S2S) API, which is functionally the same transaction with a different front end.

Whichever path is used, the submission goes through automated validation before it is accepted — missing required fields, budget totals that don’t reconcile between the Cover form and the detailed budget, or a mismatched UEI will generate an error or warning that has to be resolved before Grants.gov (and then the receiving agency’s own system) will accept the package. Federal agencies generally allow a short window after the deadline for the applicant to correct system-generated errors that were not the applicant’s fault, but this is not a substitute for submitting early — most sponsored programs offices set an internal deadline well ahead of the federal one specifically to leave time for this validation-and-correction cycle.

Common mistakes

Reconciling budget totals late. The Estimated Project Funding figure on the Cover form must match the sum of the detailed budget components; building the Cover form before the budget is finalized is a common source of last-minute validation errors.
Missing UEI/SAM.gov renewal. SAM.gov registration expires annually; a lapsed registration blocks submission entirely and cannot be fixed same-day, since SAM.gov renewal itself takes time to process.
Treating agency-specific components as optional. A component named for one agency (e.g. a PHS 398 form) is not itself optional once the funding opportunity requires it — “R&R” in a form’s name does not mean every R&R-family form applies to every opportunity, and the reverse is also true.
Skipping subaward budget components. Every subrecipient organization on the project needs its own R&R Subaward Budget Attachment; omitting one is a frequent cause of a returned application.

Frequently asked questions

Is SF-424 (R&R) the same as SF-424?

No. Plain SF-424 is the general federal assistance application form used for non-research grants; SF-424 (R&R) is the research-specific variant, with additional components (Senior/Key Person Profile, detailed project information) that a non-research SF-424 application does not need. There is also a separate SF-424 Mandatory family some agencies use for certain system-to-system submissions. All three share the same underlying OMB clearance family but are not interchangeable.

Did SF-424 (R&R) replace PHS 398?

It replaced PHS 398 as the paper-submission mechanism. The PHS 398 name lives on as NIH’s agency-specific component forms bundled inside the SF-424 (R&R) package — see CASRAI’s PHS 398 guide for the full breakdown of which PHS 398-named forms still exist and where.

Who is authorized to submit an SF-424 (R&R) application?

The application is transmitted by the applicant institution’s Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR), typically someone in the sponsored programs or research administration office, not the individual PD/PI directly — even though the PI’s certifications and contact information appear on the Cover form.

What replaced the DUNS number on SF-424 (R&R)?

The Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), issued through SAM.gov, replaced the legacy DUNS number for all federal awards; an applicant organization needs an active SAM.gov registration with a current UEI before it can submit.

Does every federal research agency use the same SF-424 (R&R) form set?

The government-wide R&R components are consistent, but each agency layers its own agency-specific components on top, and individual funding opportunities can require additional attachments beyond that. Always check the specific funding opportunity announcement’s form set rather than assuming one agency’s component list applies to another.

For related terms, see CASRAI’s cooperative agreement entry (a related but distinct award instrument also submitted via SF-424 forms), the NIH Study Section entry for what happens to an application after it is accepted, and CASRAI’s NIH Grants overview for how SF-424 (R&R) submission fits into the broader NIH funding lifecycle.