3 Comments
Although not required until January 2022, more and more applicants and recipients are following our advice and transitioning now to the updated formats and instructions for biosketch and other support documents. As a result, we’ve received a number of requests for additional clarification to our policies. We’ve updated and added FAQs, posted clarified instructions, and adjusted our other support sample document in response. All of these improved resources are accessible from our biosketch and other support pages.
Here’s a sample of new/updated FAQs:
- NIH does not allow electronic signatures on attachments in electronic applications. Will electronic signatures be accepted on Other Support submissions?
- Do outside consulting activities have to be reported in Other Support?
- Does NIH require disclosure of recently completed support in Other Support?
- The Biosketch instructions state that all positions and scientific appointments must be provided. Does this refer to active positions and appointments, or all positions a researcher has ever held?
Look for the 
and 
stickers in our biosketch FAQs and other support FAQs for additional clarifications.
If you’ve checked out our resources and still have questions, please email nihosbiosketch@nih.gov.
Complying with the Other Support guidance as clarified in the FAQ is a tremendous burden for highly collaborative researchers, especially computational ones. I’ve estimated I will need 100 entries to account for my collaborations (where no money changes hands, only collaborating on experiments together). Please reconsider this guidance, as it would take days of hands-on time, and weeks of pinging other busy academics, to comply.
“I am collaborating with another scientist in the US, whose experiments have directly benefitted my research. Their experiments were conducted with funds awarded to their institution. Should this be reported as Other Support?
Yes. Other Support includes domestic research collaborations that directly benefit the researcher’s research endeavors.”
The requirement for an electronic signature on Other Support is an undue burden, specifically put in place to impeded scientists. I would love to see members of Congress and the Supreme Court have to fill out an Other Support page.
If the NIH is going to require electronic signatures, it should have a process in place for obtaining these signatures. My community partners, who are invaluable to our research plan, do not have the capacity to electronically sign documents.