Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A five-page NIH Biosketch with one-page personal statement and five 'Contributions to Science' entries
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A 30-page CV with full publication list is not a biosketch in the NIH/NSF sense
Editorial commentary
A biosketch (biographical sketch) is the short, page-limited document that US federal funding agencies require for every senior/key person named on a grant application. It is not a CV: length, section order and permitted content are fixed by the agency, and a biosketch that does not follow the current format can stop a proposal from being submitted at all. NIH and NSF each require their own version, and the two are no longer interchangeable.
NIH biosketch
The NIH biographical sketch covers a personal statement justifying the researcher’s role on the proposed project, positions and honours, contributions to science, and ongoing or recent support. NIH moved to the Common Form in 2026, and since May 2026 an old-format biosketch produces a hard submission error rather than a warning. For a complete filled-in sample and section-by-section annotations, see NIH Biosketch Worked Example.
NSF biosketch
NSF requires the biographical sketch and the companion Current and Pending (Other) Support document to be generated in SciENcv rather than typed as a free-form document — mandatory at NSF since October 2023. The structure is similar to NIH’s but the sections and validation rules differ, so an NIH biosketch cannot simply be reused for an NSF proposal.
Which one you need
Match the biosketch to the agency and the specific funding opportunity announcement, not to a template you already have on file. Both agencies now build the document through SciENcv, which keeps a researcher’s profile in one place and exports the correct agency-specific module; linking an ORCID record to SciENcv reduces the re-keying involved.
References
- NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form and Supplement
- NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG), Biographical Sketch requirements
- SciENcv (NCBI) agency module documentation
Also known as
NIH Biosketch · NSF Biosketch
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Biosketch"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch",
"name": "Biosketch",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch",
"description": "A short, structured biographical document used in US federal research grant applications (most notably NIH and NSF) summarising a researcher's qualifications, positions, contributions, and a curated subset of their outputs, in a tightly page-limited format.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/mentorship-career-stages#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/biosketch",
"sameAs": [
"NIH Biosketch",
"NSF Biosketch"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:02:56",
"dateModified": "2026-08-22T07:13:45",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
