eRA Commons

Also called: NIH eRA Commons

eRA Commons is NIH's online system where grant applicants, recipients and federal staff share research grant administration information, such as application status, summary statements, scores and Notices of Award.

An organization must register in eRA Commons to do business with NIH. Registration needs a SAM-issued UEI, though full SAM registration is not required until the application is submitted. Only a person with legal signing authority can register the organization as its signing official (SO).

A principal investigator cannot create their own account. The SO or another administrator creates it, and the PI must hold the PI role and be affiliated with the applicant organization. NIH says a PI should keep one eRA Commons account for their whole career.

NIH applications are submitted through Grants.gov (using ASSIST, Grants.gov Workspace or a system-to-system tool) and then tracked in eRA Commons. The PI role is needed to see the impact score and summary statement.

External users sign in with Login.gov or an InCommon federated account instead of a Commons username and password.