National Institutes of Health (NIH) Proposal Toolkits and Document Templates

Getting Started

• You will need to create an eRA Commons account, if you do not already have one. Contact SJSU Research Foundation to set one up.
• Information on page limits for different NIH proposal types
• Information for new investigators from the NIH
• Mock NIH peer review session from November 2020

Proposal Narrative

1. Writing the Specific Aims 

• Part 1: The Rhetorical Pattern of Introductions in Aims Pages (Northwestern University)
  This video deconstructs the introductory material of successful aims pages.
• Part 2: Patterns and Content in the Specific Aims and Conclusions in Aims Pages (Northwestern University)
  This video focuses on the specific aims concluding material of an aims page.
• Article from National Center for Biotechnology Information on NIH Specific Aims 
• NIH “All About Grants Podcast: Considerations for a Research Plan,” February 2021 
• 8 recommended elements for writing concise and compelling specific aims [pdf]

2. Writing the Research Plan 

• Part 1: Understanding NIH criteria (Northwestern University)
• Part 2: Understanding the overall structure of a grant (Northwestern University)
• Part 3: Significance and Innovation criteria (Northwestern University)
• Part 4: Analyzing the approach section (Northwestern University)

Supporting Documents

1. Biosketch

• In order to prepare your NIH Biosketch, please use the NIH SciENcv service, and log on using your eRA Commons login (see above).
• See here for NIH instructions on Biosketches with samples
• Download a sample non-fellowship biosketch from NIH [docx]

2. Data Sharing Plan (DSP)

• For infomation on Data Sharing Plans, please visit our DMP Toolkit.