eRA Information: New Contracts Screen & Link in eRA Commons for Improving NIH R&D Contracts Data; Pilot Program to Begin May 15

NIH is embarking on a pilot program on Monday, May 15, to improve the quality, accuracy, and transparency of data about NIH R&D contract projects displayed to the public (See NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-23-115).

Six contract vendors have been selected to participate in the pilot. These vendors will directly enter select project data about their awarded extramural R&D contract projects into eRA Commons within 15 calendar days of the request from NIH staff. The data includes items such as  project title, abstract, specific aims, and more (See Submitting Data on R&D Contracts webpage for details).

To facilitate this pilot program, a few changes will be evident in eRA Commons (explained further below).

Note: While all users of eRA Commons might see these new features, only participating pilot vendors who received a request from NIH to update a contracts record assigned to them should use the action link or the resulting Contract/Project Information screen.

Changes in eRA Commons related to the R&D Contract Projects Pilot

• On the Status screen in eRA Commons, signing officials (SOs) will see awarded contracts for their organization on their search results screen. Principal investigators (PIs) involved in the pilot will also see awarded contracts assigned to them.

Figure 1: Contract Data action link in Status results for signing officials, to be used only by pilot users

• The contracts row will show an action link named Contract Data on the Status screen that will lead to a Contract/Project Information screen.

Figure 2: Contract Data action link in Status results for principal investigators, to be used only by pilot users

Figure 3: Contract/Project Information screen to be used only by pilot users