A Reminder: Commons ID Required for All on Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) Form, Effective Mid-January
Posted December 22, 2023
In April 2021, NIH announced that all personnel listed on the R&R Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) Form must have an eRA Commons ID. Those who did not comply were given a warning.
Fast forward to now. Having given ample notice to the applicant and recipient community and seeing a high level of compliance, NIH will now update the warning to an error for non-compliance with this requirement in mid-January. Applicants will receive an error if the “Credential, e.g., agency field” is blank or does not contain a valid eRA Commons ID for all personnel on the form. That includes Senior/Key Personnel and Other Significant Contributors. Errors must be corrected before an application can be successfully submitted to the agency.
See NOT-OD-24-042. It states … The validation is anticipated to be updated from a warning to an error in mid-January in advance of due dates on or after January 25, 2024.
The requirement enforcement is expected to facilitate better data collection for individuals contributing to federally funded research as well as help in disambiguating data on applications and facilitating identification of conflicts of interest in peer review.
Applicants are encouraged to check that their Commons account is active well before the due dates.