The New York Academy of Sciences
Grantsmanship for Students and Postdocs: Navigating Fellowships

Posted June 10, 2019
Presented By
Overview
Grant writing is an essential skill for early career scientists to acquire as they grow towards independence. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and private organizations offer funding opportunities for scientists starting as early as their graduate training. Most applicants are surprised to learn that the grant writing process can be more difficult than the research itself. With limited funds available due in part to shrinking university budgets, the grant application is very competitive. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows must learn successful strategies with guidance from previous applicants. To provide support for the application process, the Science Alliance at the New York Academy of Sciences hosted the Grantsmanship for Graduate Students and Postdocs: Pathways to Individual Fellowship seminar on March 20, 2019.
Learn best practices for effective grant writing, specifically applied to fellowship applications in biomedical fields, in this summary of the seminar.
Seminar Highlights
- Preparing for a fellowship application is as important as the writing itself, so make sure to start early.
- F-award applicants should use NIH RePORTER to view successful grants from previous years and identify which study section is ideal for their application.
- F-award application reviewers consider five main criteria: the fellowship applicant, the sponsors, collaborators and consultants supporting the applicant, the research training plan, the potential of the applicant to continue to succeed in academic research, and the institution’s commitment to the training.
- Grant writing skills are transferable between funding opportunities at the NIH and private organizations.