NIH COMMONS System

NIH COMMONS System

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) does not use COMMONS for proposal submission in the same way that the National Science Foundation (NSF) does but you must have a COMMONS account to apply to NIH.  While the proposal is submitted through grants.gov, the federal portal for grants submissions, it is retrieved by NIH through the COMMONS system and then reviewed through that system. 

COMMONS users can have many roles.  Researchers can be Principal Investigators, Postdoctoral Fellows, and Reviewers.  ORSP acts as the Authorizing Official and Signing Officials for Queens College, the organization.  The Research Foundation submits the financial reports through the COMMONS.

If you have never reviewed or submitted an NIH proposal within the last seven years, you probably don’t have a COMMONS account.  If that is the case, just call ORSP at 718-997-5400 and ask for someone to help you in setting up an NIH COMMONS account.  Once your account is set up, an email is sent to you with a very long password which you will be requested to change as soon as you log-in.  Do this and then proceed to fill out your profile with your employment information, degree history, and contact information. 

If you already have a COMMONS account either from another institution, or set up to review grants, do not request a new account from Queens College.  We only need to affiliate your account with Queens and you merely update your personal profile information.

Bear in mind that COMMONS personal profile information is used match you with your grant application so please enter the information carefully and make sure it’s the usual way you enter your address, phone, etc.  A good idea is to print out your profile and keep it as a template for filling in the NIH forms.  Your COMMONS User ID is required as a key element on the NIH biosketch form.  Please choose something that is easy to remember and can identify you easily.

In addition to COMMONS being used as a the place where a proposal is reviewed, it is also used for post-award administration, including requesting an extension and preparing the NIH progress report.  The COMMONS is also the method used for submitting pre-award Just-in-Time documents such as human subjects approval and Current and Pending Support information.  In addition, it is used to document predoctoral students being supported through training grants.

To get to the COMMONS page, please click here. 

If you have more questions, please call ORSP.