The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has adopted the Common Forms as per the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandum on Policy Regarding Use of Common Disclosure Forms. NIH will implement the Biographical Sketch Common Form and the Current and Pending (Other) Support Common Form for Research Performance Progress Reports (RPRRs) and application submissions on or after Jan. 25, 2026.
Accordingly, SpartaGrants SF424 workspace has been updated to address this new requirement when submitting new, renewal, or resubmission grant applications system-to-system. This does not include Just-In-Time (JIT) or RPPR submissions.
With this update, you may encounter error messages on SpartaGrants that you should understand.
- When attaching a biosketch that was properly created in SciENcv, the system will generate a warning indicating that the attachment contains a signature field.
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- This warning is expected and should appear for EACH senior/key person listed on the application that has properly completed their biosketch.
- Be aware, there should be the same number of warnings as there are key personnel listed on the application. (i.e. if there are eight key people listed and only seven warnings, someone’s biosketch is not digitally signed) Please ensure all are signed.
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- Grants.gov is working to update automated error messages when checking applications prior to submission for the validation of each attachment. In the interim, the below error may appear for senior/key personnel on the application and will prevent you from being able to validate the SF424.
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- If this occurs and these are the only errors preventing validation, you may route the funding proposal with an un-validated SF424.
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As a reminder, the warning message regarding a document containing a signature field is not problematic and will not prevent the validation of the SF424.