Skip to Content

Research and Grant Development Services

  • Michael Beets presents to a room of faculty members

Research Toolbox

Research and Grant Development Services provides a number of resources to assist with professional research development and proposal development.

Federal funding agency updates

Expand the topic headings below to get the latest time-sensitive updates from federal research funding agencies.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued a notice (NOT-OD-26-094) announcing the replacement of letters of support with letters of collaboration.

As part of the NIH's ongoing efforts to increase efficiency and minimize applicant burden, it is aligning its letter of support requirements in applications with the format currently used by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NIH letters of support will be replaced with letters of collaboration. Currently, letters of support for NIH applications may come from a variety of stakeholders, including collaborators, institutions, potential users of a resource, or any other interested parties, and can be a page or more in length.

With the implementation of Forms J in Fiscal Year 2027, the NIH will no longer allow letters of support but will instead require letters of collaboration to document any collaborative relationships with individuals that are not identified in the application as senior/key personnel or other significant contributors. Because senior/key personnel and other significant contributors must provide biosketches in the application, letters of collaboration from them are unnecessary. Letters of collaboration will also be used to document other relevant contributions to the project's success, such as Material Transfer Agreements.

Letters designed to endorse the application without an intent to collaborate or provide material support will no longer be permitted in NIH grant applications. Applications that continue to include letters of support after the implementation date may be returned without review.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued a notice (NOT-OD-26-018) announcing the following new documentation requirements for NIH proposals submitted on or after Sunday, January 25, 2026:

  • Researchers must use the following common forms available through SciENcv: Biographical Sketch, Current and Pending (Other) Support and NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.
  • Researchers must obtain an ORCID iD and link it to their eRA Commons account. To comply with this requirement, the ORCID iD must generate on the researcher’s common forms in SciENcv.
  • Principal investigators must certify that they have completed required research security training in the preceding 12 months. This certification is submitted as part of the Current and Pending (Other) Support form.

The Carolina Grants and Innovation Hub and our partners offer a suite of helpful tools and training to support USC faculty and research administrators in meeting these new requirements.

SciENcv common forms:

ORCID iD:

Research Security Training:

  • CGI Hub Research Security Training page (USC researchers will complete this web-based training and receive their certificate of completion through the CITI training platform.)
  • Important Note: To receive credit for completing required research security training, users must download their certificates of completion and submit them to Research Training and Education Services through the form available on the Research Security Training page.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced several new policies to help ensure NSF-funded projects are free of malign foreign interference and misappropriation, effective Tuesday, December 2, 2025. All PIs, Co-PIs and senior personnel (including collaborators from other insitutions) are required to complete research security training in order to submit proposals to NSF.  Researchers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the policy updates detailed in the NSF’s Important Notice No. 149 and summarized in a helpful FAQ available on the NSF website. 

Individual colleges' facilities, equipment, and other resources

USC Mentoring Plan Resources

Coming soon:

  • National Science Foundation (NSF) 
  • Department of Energy (DOE) 
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 
  • Department of Education (DOEd) 
  • Department of Defense (DOD)
  • National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 
  • National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) 

 

Research and Grant Development Services

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

©