Personal Profile
Downloadable PDF Fact Sheet (310 KB)
What is the purpose?
Federal agencies maintain information on investigators to facilitate the processing and review of grant applications. The Personal Profile in eRA Commons is the central repository of information for all Commons registered users. It is designed so that individual eRA users hold and maintain ownership over the accuracy of their own profile information. This central repository is then integrated throughout the eRA system and used for a variety of agency business such as peer review, application data, and trainee data. The data also accommodates statistical reporting requirements of the agency.
Users are responsible for keeping their information current and correct. Once an institution initiates the registration process for the Project Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) or a Scientific Review Administrator enables Commons access for a reviewer for review purposes, the PD/PI or reviewer respectively must verify the accuracy of the personal information located within the eRA Personal Profile. This data must be maintained to ensure that grant applications are processed accurately and that reviewer conflicts may be identified.
The information in the profile includes:
- Personal information such as name, contact information, date of birth, etc.
- Race/ethnicity
- Employment history
- Reviewer work address (the reviewer address is used only when the user is a reviewer)
- Residential address
- Degrees earned
- Publications [Lists the peer-reviewed publications directly relevant to proposed projects, with full citation text and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) accession number]
- Ability to monitor submission of Reference letters for those programs requiring submission of these confidential documents separately from any application submission
What are the benefits?
- Allows users ownership over their own profile information
- Allows a PD/PI to delegate the authority to update personal profile information to a person with an Assistant role in Commons
- Provides a single profile per person regardless of the various roles they may hold throughout their relationship with the agency (e.g., Trainee, PD/PI, peer reviewer etc.) assuring data accuracy and integrity
Who can use the Personal Profile feature?
- Registered Commons users regardless of user role including PD/PIs, Signing Officials
- A Commons username and password are needed to log in
