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Research performance progress report (rppr) - annual, interim, and final.

The RPPR is used by recipients to submit progress reports to NIH on their grant awards. There are three types of RPPRs

  • Annual RPPR - Use to describe a grant’s scientific progress, identify significant changes, report on personnel, and describe plans for the subsequent budget period or year.
  • Interim RPPR – Use when submitting a renewal (Type 2) application. If the Type 2 is not funded, the Interim RPPR will serve as the Final RPPR for the project. If the Type 2 is funded, the Interim RPPR will serve as the annual RPPR for the final year of the previous competitive segment. The data elements collected on the Interim RPPR are the same as for the Final RPPR, including project outcomes.
  • Final RPPR - Use as part of the grant closeout process to submit project outcomes in addition to the information submitted on the annual RPPR. A final progress report is required for any grant that has passed its project end date and will not be extended through award of a new competitive segment. 

There is no RPPR form available for download. Submit RPPR data through the eRA Commons . The links for each type of RPPR are accessed through the Commons Status tab. The Interim RPPR link will also be accessed through the Commons Status tab. It will appear one day after the project segment end date, but before it has moved to closeout. The Final RPPR link will become available through the closeout module once the grant is eligible for closeout.

  • NIH RPPR Instruction Guide
  • NIH RPPR Online Help
  • Final Invention Statement
  • Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR)  website
  • RPPR Help & Tutorials
  • RPPRs: Who Can Do What?

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After Submission

Post-award actions, pre-meeting, post-meeting, manage accounts.

  • Services for Applications/Recipients
  • Manage Reporting Requirements

Overview of Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR)

What is the purpose.

Progress reports are required annually to document recipient accomplishments and compliance with terms of award. They describe scientific progress, identify significant changes, report on personnel, and describe plans for the subsequent budget period or year.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has mandated the use of a federal-wide research performance progress report (RPPR) by all federal awarding agencies for submission of required annual, final, and interim performance reporting on grants and cooperative agreement awards to standardize recipient reporting on federally-funded research projects.

Main Screenshots

Figure 1: A signing official (SO) accesses an RPPR via the three-dot ellipsis menu in search results in the Status module.

Figure 1 : A signing official (SO) accesses an RPPR via the three-dot ellipsis menu in search results in the Status module. 

Figure 2: The Annual RPPR form and navigation tabs

Figure 2 : The Annual RPPR form and navigation tabs

The Use of RPPR

NIH requires use of the RPPR module in eRA Commons to submit all annual progress reports, as well as Final RPPR for award closeout, and the Interim RPPR when an awarded institution applies for a competitive renewal (Type II) application.

What are the benefits of RPPR?

Here is a list of the features and benefits of RPPR:

Because RPPR is integrated with eRA Commons, much of the information is pre-populated from NIH systems for the recipient, including PD/PI information, grant number, project title and period, performance sites, and personnel (except in the first year of RPPR use for progress reports not previously submitted through eRA Commons). The PD/PI’s publications, if linked to his/her Commons account from MY NCBI (as is required for NIH), are displayed for easy association with the progress report.

  • RPPR addresses NIH specific policies such as required human subjects education, inclusion enrollment reporting, use of human embryonic stem cells, etc.
  • The format of the report is user friendly. Users answer questions using a checkbox, by entering text or uploading a PDF, or selecting ‘Nothing to Report.’
  • A request can be made to recipients for additional information for the progress report that can be submitted via eRA Commons.
  • An institute can request additional material seeking clarification on an issue from a recipient, following submission of the progress report.
  • An institute can also request verification that the recipient is in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy, which requires recipients to make available to the public any publications that arose from federally-funded grants (within 12 months of publication).
  • A specific location to report award-related competitive revisions/administrative supplements.
  • Automated indication of compliance with the Public Access Policy
  • Other support is only required if there has been a change
  • A link to the Notice of Award

Here are some helpful links:

  • NIH Grants web page for RPPR
  • "How to" information on the  Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) 
  • E-mail Updates

research progress report

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Writing a progress/status report

By michael ernst, january, 2010.

Writing a weekly report about your research progress can make your research more successful, less frustrating, and more visible to others, among other benefits.

One good format is to write your report in four parts:

  • Quote the previous week's plan. This helps you determine whether you accomplished your goals.
  • State this week's progress. This can include information such as: what you have accomplished, what you learned, what difficulties you overcame, what difficulties are still blocking you, your new ideas for research directions or projects, and the like.
  • Give the next week's plan. A good format is a bulleted list, so we can see what you accomplished or did not. Try to make each goal measurable: there should be no ambiguity as to whether you were able to finish it. It's good to include longer-term goals as well.
  • Give an agenda for the meeting. Some people like to send this as a separate message, which is fine.

The report need not be onerous. It can be a few paragraphs or a page, so it shouldn't take you long to write. Minimize details that are not relevant to your audience, such as classwork and the like, in order to keep the report focused; you will spend less time writing it, and make it more likely to be read.

Writing the progress report has many benefits.

Writing the report will make you more productive, because it will force you to think about your work in a manner concretely enough to write down. Any time that you spend organizing your thoughts will more than pay itself back in better understanding and improved productivity. When a project is complete, it is all too easy to forget some of your contributions. You can look back over your progress reports to remember what was difficult, and to think about how to work more productively in the future. You may be able to re-use some of the text when writing up your results.

Writing the report will make your meetings more productive. When you have a weekly research meeting, the report should be sent 24 hours in advance, to help everyone prepare. (Two hours is not an acceptable alternative: it does not let everyone — both you and others — mull over the ideas.) Don't delay your report because you want to wait until you have better results to report. Instead, send the report on schedule, and if you get more results in the next 24 hours, you can discuss those at the meeting.

Writing the report will give you feedback from a new point of view. The report enables others outside your research project to know what you are doing. Those people may respond with ideas or suggestions, which can help get you unstuck or give you additional avenues to explore. It also keeps you on their radar screen and reminds them of your work, which a good thing if you don't meet with them frequently. (For PhD students, a periodic report to the members of your thesis committee can pay big dividends.)

Writing the report helps explain (to yourself especially, but also to others) how you spent your time — even if there isn't as much progress as you would have preferred, you can see that you did work hard, and how to be more efficient or effective in the future.

If your meetings are more frequent than weekly, then the progress report should also be more frequent. If your meetings are less frequent, it's a good idea to still send a progress report each week.

Important tip: Throughout the day, maintain a log of what you have done. This can be a simple text file. You can update it when you start and end a task, or at regular intervals throughout the day. It takes only a moment to maintain the log, and it makes writing the report easy. By contrast, without a log you might forget what you have done during the week, and writing the report could take a long time.

Back to Advice compiled by Michael Ernst .