New Date Announced for iEdison Launch

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) plans to launch the new iEdison system on Tuesday, August 9, 2022. For two and half years, NIST has been modernizing and updating the iEdison system, working closely with the iEdison community to ensure a feature-rich, user-friendly system.

iEdison is an online reporting system used by recipients of federal research funding agreements to report their resulting inventions as required by the Bayh-Dole Act. Developed in the mid-90s by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and called “Edison,” the system managed NIH extramural invention reporting.  When NIH opened the system up to other agencies, they changed the name to “interagency Edison” or “iEdison.”  Today, over 30 federal agencies use iEdison to report to their government funding agency. NIST anticipates that number will grow with the launch of the new system.

NIST has the authority to issue Bayh-Dole regulations, as well as co-chairs the National Science and Technology Council’s Lab-to-Market subcommittee.  Therefore, the interagency community decided, with the mutual agreement of NIST and NIH, that NIST assume management of iEdison and oversee the modernization of the system. Since then, NIST, NIH, and the interagency community have collaborated in the development of the new system.  Bethany Loftin, interagency and iEdison specialist in NIST’s Technology Partnership Office (TPO), has been managing the project.

“We are all very excited about the launch of the new system. NIST has put together an excellent development team and the interagency community’s input and enthusiasm has been invaluable throughout the process. We can’t wait for the new system to launch and for the end users to finally get access to the system and explore all of its new features,” said Bethany. 

To prepare for the transition from NIH to NIST, including the transfer of data and active accounts, users should be aware that the existing NIH eRA iEdison system will be unavailable from Tuesday, August 2, 2022, through Monday, August 8, 2022. Users can be assured that all existing data and associated documents will be carried over to the new iEdison system.  It is highly recommended that if reporting is due during the transition period, that users enter that data into the NIH iEdison system prior to Tuesday, August 2. For additional information on how to prepare for the transition, iEdison users should see the NIH iEdison Guide Notice. Users can also visit the NIST iEdison website for information about upcoming training opportunities.