NIH biosketch
How to write the NIH biosketch personal statement
The personal statement opens the NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement. In up to 3,500 characters, it tells reviewers why you are well suited to your role in this project. It holds no full citations, but it can refer in parentheses to any of the ten products on your Common Form.
Updated
What NIH asks for
Briefly describe why you are well-suited for your role(s) in this project.
From Instructions for Biographical Sketch Supplement, NIH Grants and Funding
The supplement’s instructions list the factors that can make that case: your training, your earlier experimental work on this topic or related ones, your technical expertise, your collaborators or scientific environment, and your past performance. That includes ongoing and completed projects from the past three years that you want to highlight.
The statement is also where NIH asks for a few things by name:
- Factors that affected your past productivity, such as family care, illness, disability or military service, if you want to explain them.
- Whether you have published or created research products under another name.
- For a dissertation award such as an R36, your career goals, your intended career path and your interest in the research areas the funding opportunity names.
- For an institutional training, career development or research education grant, faculty who are not senior/key persons are encouraged to write a statement but may enter N/A.
The limit and references to your work
The statement holds up to 3,500 characters. Markdown for bold and italics does not count toward the limit, and SciENcv supports no hyperlinks (NCBI’s help).
You may provide in-text, parenthetical references for any of the ten products listed in the Products section of your Biographical Sketch Common Form that highlight your experience and qualifications for this project.
From Instructions for Biographical Sketch Supplement, NIH Grants and Funding
NIH recommends the lead author and year, such as (Lane et al., 2024), or the product’s PMCID or PMID (NIH’s FAQ). Full citations and hyperlinked references stay out of the supplement.
In the old format, the personal statement cited up to four products. Those papers now go in the Common Form’s products closely related to the proposed project, and the statement can describe them (NOT-OD-26-018).
What makes a statement work
- Open with your role in this project and what you will do in it.
- Tie each qualification to a task in the project: the training, method or patients the work needs.
- Say what your earlier work found and what it led to, and refer to the product that reports it.
- Name the collaborators you have worked with before and the products you made together.
- End with the ongoing and recent projects you want to highlight, each with its funder, your role and its years.
- Write a new statement for each application, because NIH asks about your role in this project.
Example: a principal investigator
Ada Lane, a made-up hospitalist, leads an R01 on pharmacist phone calls after discharge for heart failure. The NIH biosketch example shows the rest of her biosketch.
Ada Lane, principal investigator
I am a hospitalist and health services researcher, and I will lead this project as principal investigator. The project asks whether pharmacist phone calls in the first week after discharge reduce readmissions among older adults with heart failure. My training in internal medicine and a research fellowship with an MPH in epidemiology prepared me to study the move from hospital to home. My team found that medication discrepancies in the first week home are common and predict readmission (Lane et al., 2022), and we described readmissions across our regional health system (Lane et al., 2021). With Dr. Rosa Delgado, a clinical pharmacist and co-investigator, I developed the call script this project uses (Delgado and Lane, 2023) and led a pilot randomized study of 160 patients (Lane et al., 2024). Dr. Jordan Okafor, our biostatistician since 2017, led the simulation that set this project’s sample size (Okafor and Lane, 2025). Ongoing and recently completed projects I would like to highlight: Pharmacist Follow-up After Heart Failure Discharge, Alder Valley Health Foundation, principal investigator, 2023 to 2025; Medication Safety in the First Week Home, Alder Valley University, principal investigator, 2021 to 2023. Before 2010 I published as Ada Morris.
Her statement runs to 1,266 characters. It opens with her role, ties her training to the question, refers to all five of her closely related products, names both collaborators, lists her recent projects and gives the name she published under before 2010.
Example: a co-investigator
Jordan Okafor, a made-up biostatistician, is a co-investigator on the same application.
Jordan Okafor, co-investigator
I am a biostatistician, and I will serve as co-investigator and lead statistician for this project. I will design the randomization, write the statistical analysis plan, oversee data management and lead the analyses of readmissions and medication outcomes. My methods work centers on stepped-wedge and cluster randomized designs in health services research, and I led the simulation study that set this project’s sample size (Okafor and Lane, 2025). I have worked with Dr. Ada Lane since 2017. I led the analyses for her pilot randomized study of pharmacist calls (Lane et al., 2024) and her study of medication discrepancies after discharge (Lane et al., 2022), and together we built the regional cohort this project draws on (Lane and Okafor, 2023). I teach the graduate course in clinical trial design at Alder Valley University and direct the Department of Medicine’s biostatistics consulting service. Ongoing and recently completed projects I would like to highlight: Stepped-Wedge Designs for Care Transition Programs, Midwest Society for Health Services Research, principal investigator, 2024 to 2026.
This statement runs to 1,108 characters. It names the tasks Jordan will do in the project, the methods behind them and the shared work with the principal investigator, with a reference for each claim.
Write it in ScienceDex
In ScienceDex’s NIH biosketch, each version of your biosketch keeps its own personal statement, products and contributions, up to ten versions. Your appointments, education and honors come from your CV.
As you write, the editor counts the statement against NIH’s 3,500 characters, spaces and references included, and keeps every word if you go over. Under Products cited in the statement, choose the version’s products it refers to, and the Word file adds them in parentheses after your statement.
Download Word gives you the same sections in the same order as the NIH forms, so you can check the statement and paste it into SciENcv.
Faculty privacy sets out who can open your CV.
Questions
How long can the NIH biosketch personal statement be?
Up to 3,500 characters. Markdown for bold and italics does not count toward the limit.
Can the personal statement include references?
Yes, in parentheses, but only to the ten products on your Common Form, such as (Lane et al., 2024) or the product’s PMCID or PMID. Full citations and links are not allowed.
Where do I explain a gap in my productivity?
In the personal statement. NIH’s instructions say you may explain factors that affected your past productivity, such as family care, illness, disability or military service.
Do I need a new personal statement for each application?
Write one for each. NIH asks why you are well suited to your role in this project, so the statement follows the project and your role in it.
Sources
- Instructions for Biographical Sketch Supplement NIH Grants and Funding. Read .
- SciENcv My NCBI Help, NCBI. Read .
- Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support NIH Grants and Funding. Read .
- NIH’s Implementation of Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support for Due Dates on or after January 25, 2026 NIH Grants and Funding. Read .