How to make an NIH biosketch in SciENcv, step by step

Before you start

• An ORCID iD linked to your eRA Commons Personal Profile (eRA’s ORCID help). One ORCID iD links to one Commons account.
• A way to sign in. You need no separate NCBI account, and NIH recommends signing in with ORCID (NIH’s FAQ).
• Your papers in My Bibliography or your ORCID record, so you can pick your products from them.
• The words for the supplement, ready to paste: your personal statement, your honors and up to five contributions to science.

SciENcv does not convert an old NIH biosketch when you open it, but a banner on it explains how to copy its information into the new form. In step 4 below you can start a new document as a copy of any biosketch you already have, an old NIH one or another agency’s.

Start the document

1. 1

   Sign in. Go to SciENcv and sign in with ORCID, eRA Commons or another account it lists.

2. 2

   Select New Document. Give the document a name you will recognize, such as the application it is for.

3. 3

   Choose the form. In the Document type menu, choose NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form.

4. 4

   Choose where the data comes from. Start with a blank document, copy an existing biosketch, or fill it from your ORCID record, then select Create.

When you copy an existing biosketch, from NSF or an older NIH format, read the new document section by section. NIH encourages you to review the new version carefully, check that the information is still accurate and fill in any missing fields (NOT-OD-26-018). The National Library of Medicine’s walk-through shows each screen.

Fill in each section

A red warning icon next to a section’s title means required information is missing, and it disappears once every required field is complete (NCBI’s help). After each entry, Save & Add Another Entry opens a blank one.

Products come from My Bibliography or, once ORCID is linked, from your ORCID record. To add PubMed papers to My Bibliography, select Add product and search by author or title. Add other work by hand under Manage My Bibliography.

SciENcv supports bold and italics through markdown, which does not count toward the character limits, and it supports no hyperlinks. If it rejects a Greek letter, spell the letter out, such as “omega”.

View the draft, certify and download

1. 1

   View Draft. Select View Draft at any time for a PDF marked DRAFT. It carries no certification text and cannot be submitted.

2. 2

   Download PDF. When every required field is complete, the Download PDF button turns blue. Select it, read the certification text and select Certify.

3. 3

   Attach it. Attach the PDF to the Biographical Sketch attachment field of the R&R Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) form. You may rename it, but do not flatten it or save it again in another program.

A delegate can create and edit your documents, but only you can certify them. When a delegate selects Download PDF, SciENcv offers Send Notification, which emails you to certify.

Prepare the words before you open SciENcv

In ScienceDex’s NIH biosketch, your appointments, education and honors come from your CV, and for each application you write the statement, choose the products and describe the contributions. The editor counts the statement against 3,500 characters and each contribution against 2,000 as you write.

Download Word gives you a file with the same sections in the same order as SciENcv’s form. Check it, then paste your words into SciENcv, which makes the certified PDF.

Faculty privacy sets out who can open your CV.