Reporting and assurance requirements for institutions receiving awards for training of graduate students for doctoral degrees, time to degree

4.1.25 Reporting and Assurance Requirements for Institutions Receiving Awards for Training of Graduate Students for Doctoral Degrees

As required by Section 403C of the Public Health Service Act, each institution receiving an NIH award for the training of graduate students for doctoral degrees must provide information on completion rates and time to degree to all applicants to doctoral programs supported by NIH training awards. Specifically, institutions must provide applicants with the following information for the programs to which they apply:

  • The percentage of students admitted for study who successfully attain a doctoral degree, and
  • The average time (not including any leaves of absence) between the beginning of graduate study and the receipt of a doctoral degree.

Institutions affected by this Assurance and information disclosure requirement are doctoral degree granting institutions that receive any of the following institutional training grant awards or cooperative agreements from NIH for the doctoral training of graduate students:

  • D43, TU2, T15, T32, T37, T90, U2R, U90, and U54/TL1

Institutions are not affected by this requirement if they:

  • Receive only individual NIH fellowship awards.
  • Provide training only to undergraduate or master's level students supported through one of the activity codes listed above.
  • Provide only short-term training to doctoral-level health professional students through one of the activity codes listed above.
  • Receive an award for one or more of the activity codes for doctoral training of graduate students, but do not confer doctoral degrees themselves (e.g., teaching hospitals).
  • Receive an institutional training grant award for doctoral training of graduate students from a Public Health Service Agency other than NIH.

In complying with this Assurance and information disclosure requirement, institutions may decide how best to present the required information to applicants and may wish to consider consolidating data by department or broad program to which candidates apply, or providing additional information in order to provide context.

Recipients with awards for any of the activity codes listed above are also required to provide corresponding information on trainees supported by each of their awards when submitting a renewal application or RPPR.