National Institutes of Health

Page Updated: March 1, 2024

NIH is the largest single sponsor of UW funding. To that end, we have listed additional information about NIH policies and practices on campus. Below you will find information on how to access NIH systems and pages, gain necessary access, proposal submission, various policies and how-to’s and information on NIH Fellowships.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact someone on the Preaward team in either the Proposal, Contracts or Awards team (whichever suits the stage/question you may have). The contact information can be found here: https://rsp.wisc.edu/directory.cfm

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a new Data Management & Sharing (DMS) Policy that takes effect in January 2023!

Effective for applications starting January 25, 2023 and after, all NIH-supported researchers producing scientific data will be expected to submit a data management & sharing plan as part of their proposals. Updates on the plan will be expected within annual reporting and non-compliance with the plan after the end of the funding period “may be taken into consideration for future funding decisions for the recipient institution.” (NIH 2023 policy) To read more about the forthcoming policy, visit: https://sharing.nih.gov/

If you have questions about the policy, data sharing, or data management plans, reach out to Research Data Services (RDS). At the RDS website, you can learn more about DMPTool (https://dmptool.org/) - a tool that assists you with writing & reviewing data management plans and about the data repositories available to you through campus where you can share your data.

The School of Medicine and Public Health has an extremely useful DMS page here: https://grantslibrary.med.wisc.edu/dmsp/.

Getting Started at NIH

Most of the following links will take you outside of RSP and directly to informational pages you may find helpful at NIH. We recommend bookmarking a few of these pages for easy access.

NIH Proposal Submission

One of the first questions you may have is "How do I get my proposal submitted to NIH?" We encourage you to visit the Proposal Preparation page for a general overview, but here are a few steps that you will need to know for NIH proposals:

NIH proposals are submitted by an authorized official via Grants.gov. At UW, the main method of submission is via Cayuse. If for some reason your opportunity is not supported or you choose not to use Cayuse, you may also submit via Grants.gov Workspace. We have a couple various submission guides available for proposal development and Cayuse use.

Research and Sponsored Programs closes at 4:30pm. If you must submit the day of the deadline, especially late in the day, please call the proposal team and speak with someone on the phone. The Proposal Team will do everything possible to get the proposal to the sponsor on time. However, as the amount of time for processing is reduced, the chance for insurmountable obstacles increases.

After your application has been submitted by an authorized official the next step is to make sure the application made it to eRA Commons successfully. Please review the Recent/Pending eSubmissions in eRA Commons to make sure your application is error free. It is important to remain available until this step is complete.

Please visit our Forms page for up-to-date forms that may be needed for an application. The Budget Development Page is another helpful resource for proposal development.

NIH Foreign Letters of Support

Effective January 1, 2024, NIH expects recipients such as UW–Madison to ask potential subrecipients to submit language in their letters of support indicating their awareness of the requirements in the NIH GPS 15.2.1, including the update in NOT-OD-23-182. The letter of support will also signify the subrecipient’s willingness to abide by all requirements should an award be issued.

Suggested Language for Letter of Support

[Subrecipient name] is aware of the requirements in the NIH GPS 15.2.1 and the update in NOT-OD-23-182. If an award is issued, [Subrecipient name] agrees to provide access to copies of all lab notebooks, all data, and all documentation that supports the research outcomes as described in the progress report, to UW–Madison with a frequency of no less than once per year, in alignment with the timing requirements for Research Performance Progress Report described in the award document. Such access may be entirely electronic.

Should an NIH proposal involve a foreign subrecipient, please ensure that the entity provides a letter of support addressing the points described above.

Also see NIH FAQs about Foreign Subawards.

NIH Foreign Component Guidance
Just-In-Time Process

NIH uses Just-in-Time (JIT) to gather information about applications during the review period. Generally, there is a computer-generated request and maybe a Grants Management Specialist request depending on the success of the review. The JIT request generally contains a request for Other Support, Human Subjects and/or Animal Use approvals, Human Subjects Education certification if applicable, F&A rate agreement and any other information that is needed to complete the review process.

NIH JIT Information

Progress Reports

NIH requires Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) to be submitted for all awards. Please see our Routing Guidance on the main RSP page for submission instructions. Additional information can be found at NIH's Grants and Funding Website. Also see RSP's NIH RPPR guidance.

NIH Fellowships

NIH Fellowships are available to provide institutional research training opportunities (including international) to trainees at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. These Fellowships are submitted to NIH like any other application. Note, most fellowship opportunities have very strict budget guidelines. The University of Wisconsin-Madison does not have a “fellowship rate” for indirect costs, we follow the guidelines of each opportunity. Below is information from NIH regarding their fellowship series:

Individual Fellowships
The University will not set up New or Renewal accounts without the following forms being routed through Research and Sponsored Programs and submitted to the Agency. Similarly, all necessary approvals (Human Subjects, Animal Use, and Biological Safety) must be on file with RSP prior to account setup.

Required Assurance Form
Required for PI and Fellow to sign prior to application. Upload this form to the RAMP record.

Activation Notice

Payback Agreement
For Postdoctoral Fellowships only.

NIH NRSA Childcare Benefit

NIH recently announced that NIH NRSA fellows are eligible to request up to $2,500 per budget year to defray childcare costs. For more information, see the NIH NRSA Childcare Benefit page.