NIH CITI Training
Investigators must complete training if they conduct exempt or non-exempt human subjects research (HSR) on protocols submitted to the NIH IRB. Other staff involved in HSR such as OHSRP and ORSC staff and IRB members are also required to take training.
Investigators must complete training if they conduct exempt or non-exempt human subjects research (HSR) on protocols submitted to the NIH IRB. Other staff involved in HSR such as OHSRP and ORSC staff and IRB members are also required to take training.
Required CITI Training
You must complete CITI training if you're an NIH investigator doing human subjects research (HSR), OHSRP staff, IRB member, or ORSC staff supporting clinical research. All staff must follow the NIH policy on training.
Access the NIH CITI Training
Sign in using your PIV card or use the Authenticator App. Specific information about how to access the NIH CITI portal, how to find courses, and how to check your training records is provided in the FAQs below.
- Clear your browser's cache
- Close the browser (make sure you closed all the browsers' windows that might be on different screens, collapsed, etc.)
- Open a browser in Incognito (for Chrome) or InPrivate (for Edge) mode (to ensure that any old sessions stored in the browser do not interfere with the current session)
- Go back to this CITI training page
- Click on "Access the NIH CITI Training" link above
- Once on NIH Login page, click on "Sign in" button
- Choose correct certificate (you may have multiple certificates presented to you, you need to choose the correct one)
- Provide PIN number
- Click on "I Agree" button
If you still are receiving an error message after clearing the browser's cache, please enter a help desk ticket.
Note that unaffiliated IRB members don’t have a NED email, but they have been provided special access to the NIH CITI account. However, unaffiliated IRB members need to log via the main CITI site (not via the NIH portal on our website) using their username and password established when they first became an unaffiliated IRB member. If unaffiliated members have difficulty accessing their account or cannot remember their username or password, they should contact Peg Sanders at margaret.sanders@nih.gov.
Required training for NIH investigators conducting HSR and others involved in NIH HSR
Important points to remember about HSR training at NIH
- Make sure you finish your CITI refresher training before it expires. The IRB won't process your submission if any study investigators haven't finished the required training.
- The NIH IRB might ask you to do extra training if you don't understand certain areas, start new research, or need a corrective action plan.
- Institute/Center leadership might also ask you to complete additional training.
- The Directors of OHSRP and the IRBO Director can require additional training for IRB members or OHSRP staff.
- You and other members of the NIH Human Research Protection Program (HRPP), as well as IRB members, can take other educational courses even if they aren't required. If you have an account in the NIH Enterprise Directory (NED) or are an unaffiliated NIH IRB member, you can access various CITI training modules through the NIH CITI portal. Just click "Add a Course" at the bottom of your course list in your CITI account.
- If you're a non-NIH investigator doing non-exempt HSR on protocols overseen by the NIH IRB, you need to follow the training requirements of your home institution unless you are told otherwise by OHSRP.
Expired CITI Training
All NIH investigators on protocols overseen by the NIH IRB must have up to date HSR training. If any investigator on the protocol is not up to date on the required training, IRBO will not process the action. Instead, they will return the submission to the PI to let them know an investigator on the protocol does not have current HSR training.
The CITI basic courses and the CITI GCP course expire three years after the completion date. All staff then need to take the relevant CITI refresher course. CITI will make the refresher courses available 90 days before the existing course expires but not prior to that date. Do not attempt to take the refresher before you receive the reminder notice from CITI that your course is expiring.
When CITI sends you email reminders of pending CITI course expiration, you can then sign in via the NIH CITI portal to complete the refresher course(s) before the expiration date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your NIH CITI account must use the email listed in the NIH Enterprise Directory (NED) for your training records to download into PROTECT. Enter your name and click the “Find” button.
When the page with your information opens, scroll down to the line that says NIH Email. Be sure to use this as your preferred email address in your NIH CITI account profile, since this is the email address required to download training records from CITI to PROTECT.
When you open the NIH CITI Portal, do NOT click on Add Institutional Affiliation. Instead, click on “View Courses” to the right of National Institutes of Health.
You may see courses listed under Active Courses or Courses Ready to Begin.
If the course you need to complete (e.g. Biomedical 101, Good Clinical Practice Course (US FDA focus) etc.) is not listed, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Add a Course.”
This will take you to a list of all CITI courses available via the NIH CITI portal. Click the box in front of the course you want to take and hit “Next” at the bottom of that page. The course you selected will then appear in the “Courses Ready to Begin” section. Once you have completed a course, the completion information should be available in PROTECT the next day.
After accessing the NIH CITI portal as described above, click on “My Records” along the banner at the top of the page.
A list of the courses you have completed will be displayed along with completion and expiration dates.
Log into PROTECT. In the upper right corner, click on the down arrow (caret) next to your name, and then click on “My Profile.”
Once the profile opens, scroll down to the section labelled “Training Courses” where your CITI course completion records will be listed.
If there are any training discrepancies (e.g. you believe you have completed the NIH required CITI training, but it is not in PROTECT), please submit a PROTECT Help Desk Ticket and attach the completed training certificates. This will allow the NIH PROTECT Support Team to troubleshoot the reason for failure of the training records to download into PROTECT.