Biosketches and CPOS in SciENcv

Both NIH and NSF grant proposals require the creation of a Biographical Sketch (or Biosketch, which is a summary CV in a specific format) and a Current and Pending or Other Support form (stating other funding sources than the one being applied to). The NIH and NSF are working towards a more similar format for these documents, and the new harmonized formats are called the Common Forms. These forms should be created in Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae or SciENcv and exported to add to your proposal.

Beginning May 25, 2025, NIH applicants will be required to create Biosketches and Other Support pages through SciENcv.

Access SciENcv at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sciencv/

If you have a team that has agreed to help you with your documents, see the Add Delegate instructions to the left for how to invite them to your account.

As you go through this Guide, you may wonder why there is no discussion of Contributions to Science (in NIH) or Synergistic Activities (in NSF) sections in the Biosketch. These narrative sections are not part of the Common Forms Biosketch. 

• For NIH proposals, Contributions to Science has been announced to be a new supplemental document starting May 2025. Exact details are not available yet.
• For NSF proposals, Synergistic Activities are a supplemental document in the proposal as follows: Each individual identified as a senior/key person must provide a document of up to one-page that includes a list of up to five distinct examples that demonstrates the broader impact of the individual's professional and scholarly activities that focus on the integration and transfer of knowledge as well as its creation. Senior/key personnel must prepare, save, and submit these documents as part of their proposal via Research.gov or Grants.gov. (see PAPP Guide Part 1, Ch. 2, section D, subsection 2.h.4).

If you are already logged in at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sciencv/ you will see your eRA Commons username or the email associated with your SciENcv account in the upper-right corner.  If so, click that button and choose Dashboard from the resulting menu.

If you are not logged in, there will be a Log In button in the upper right corner. In that case, use the buttons under the Log In section of the landing page, below the SciENcv graphic banner.

You can log into SciENcv using your eRA Commons or Research.gov login. Or click the More Options button under the Login section for other login options.

If you have an eRA Commons account or a Research.gov account, we highly recommend you log into your SciENcv using that account. If you have a past MyNCBI username and password, you may have to replace that password with your eRA Commons login.

If you do not have an eRA Commons or NSF Research.gov login, then click More Options. After clicking More Options, there will be several login buttons available.

• The Google login button works best for using your @vcu.edu email to login with your eID.
• Alternatively, SOM and VCUH users may also use the Microsoft button to log in with your vcuhealth.edu email account.
• ORCiD is a good alternative if you expect to graduate soon and want to keep access after you no longer have a vcu email account.

Once you are logged in, you will see a page with a mini-profile, the first time asking for profile information. Beneath that is a small link to +Create New Document. 

From there, please see the specific pages on the left for:

• Importing education and position data from eRA Commons, Research.gov, or ORCID
• Manually entering education and position data
• Biosketch citations from PubMed
• Biosketch citations manually or from Zotero
• Biosketch citations from ORCID
• Current and Pending or Other Support pages
• Certifying and downloading the common forms

As you work in SciENcv, you may see references to My Bibliography and My NCBI. NCBI stands for the National Center for Biotechnology Information, part of the National Library of Medicine, which is an Institute of the National Institutes of Health. NLM and NCBI are best known for maintaining PubMed and other key databases of information like the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST). 

You may be familiar with My NCBI and the My Bibliography tool for their role in public access article compliance reporting. If you want to review both the SciENcv and the My Bibliography tools at once, you can visit your My NCBI dashboard (while logged in) at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/