FellowshipWorkshopDocuments

Candidate Information

Start by downloading the Candidate Information worksheet and answering those questions. You may need to set up a meeting to get some opinions from your mentors.

Documents for this Session

This session we will work on two documents related to introducing yourself to the reviewers.

We will work on the Training Activities and Timeline and Sponsor’s Statement next session.

Review Criteria (NRSA - Need to Update for New Criteria)

Review Criteria - K99/R00

Review Criteria - K23

Suggestions and Ideas

Puzzle

Think of the grant as a partially complete puzzle. First you want to describe what pieces are in place. This is who you are as a candidate and shoule be in the introduction. Then there should be a clear description of what you think the puzzle will look like when its complete. This is you as a trianed scientist after this training is complete. The missing pieces should be what goes in your training plan, and should be obvious from the descriptions of you now, and what you hope to become.

It is best to write this document along with the personal statement section of your biosketch. Here are the NIH fellowship biosketch instructions. Both documents should highlight your background and accomplishments to date.

Very early in the application you should give the reviewer a clear sense of who you are right now, and what you hope to become by the end of this funding period. This will be part of the document Candidate’s Goals, Preparedness, and Potential. A separate document will cover Training Activities and Timeline document.

From the NIH instructions: Briefly summarize your past research experience, results, and conclusions, and describe how that experience relates to the proposed fellowship. In some cases, a proposed fellowship may build directly on previous research experiences, results, and conclusions. In other situations, past research experiences may lead a candidate to apply for a fellowship in a new or different area of research. Do not list academic courses in this section. Include a narrative of your planned doctoral dissertation (may be preliminary).

Defining Yourself Now

To be a recipient of funding you should be advancing to candidacy, so describe your past and key accomplishments up to and including advancing to candidacy. This should include brief descriptions of:

Together these should provide a clear picture of you as a scientist right now, or the partially completed puzzle. These should be things that you can point to as either you currently have expertise in, or have already completed sufficient training in. Try to distinguish yourself from other applicants here by talking about your unique path. Start by using first person statements (e.g. I am a second year Ph.D. student with an undergraduate degree in cell biology completing a dissertation on the physiological role of SREBP2 in intestinal lipid transport). This defines your background (undergraduate degree in cell biology) your field (physiology), and your project (role of SREBP2 in intestinal lipid transport). Then you can elaborate on each of these points. At this stage most (but not all) candidates should have expertise in some areas, but need further training in other areas (scientific writing, statistics, field-specific content expertise, mentoring/managing trainees, networking). If you can demonstrate that you have this expertise that can distinguish you and make you a more unique candidate. For example, if you taught children figure skating during high school, this already demonstrates some teaching and mentoring skills that may require less focus in your training plans.

What Kind of Data or Evidence Can I Provide?

For your current abilities and aptitudes, think of the best possible demonstration of this, ideally something that your mentors, referees, collaborators can testify to. If you have completed critical coursework it is helpful to clarify how you did (if you did well) and what specific skills you learned. For example, “I was one of the top students in my graduate biostatistics class, where we used R to perform multivariate logistic regressions”. If you have relevant coursework, capstone projects, or undergraduate these describe these as they can demonstrate your skills but also your commitment to research. Not everyone will have publications at this stage, but if you do, describe your role in any project, including any specific skills or conceptual understandings that this publication can testify to. This can be helpful even if you were a middle author but did some methods development or analyses or literature reviews. It is ok for you to be partially an expert, and use this to identify a training gap. For example: “n this project I a secondary data analysis on cleaned data, identifying a relationship between X and Y but do not have experience in acquiring, managing or cleaning data of this type” may sound like negative language, but it provides a clear link between what you did (your abilities) and what you need further training in. Make sure to share your “skills” and “gaps” with your referees and sponsor so that they can write about your expertise in your “skills”, and their ability to fill the “gaps”.

Projecting Yourself into the Future

At the end of this funding period, you should be able to define yourself as a PhD scientist with a unique set of skills and capabilities ready for the next stage of your career. Talk to your sponsor and mentors about their perceptions of what makes an outstanding scientist in your field, and try to integrate that with your goals. Ask about about what foundational skills are critical for a scientist in their view, and how they obtained them. This should be more expansive than your current expertise in clear and specific ways. If you clearly describe (or diagram) both where you are now (the completed part of the puzzle) and where you will be at the end of your PhD, there should be obvious and clear gaps that are missing between now and the future. These will be filled by your training goals in your Training Plan and are the missing pieces. It should be obvious to the reader from the definition of yourself currently and yourself in the future what these gaps will be. I recommend a diagram or schematic specifying specific current skills/abilities and those that require further training.

Articulating Training Goals

You need to connect your prior experience, articulated here with your overall career goals. You will frame obtaining these skills into specific goals for training. Try to use the SMART framework for goals. This link may be useful if you are new to this framework:

These skills and goals should be primarily but not exclusively research focused. You should generally include at least one professional development goal, for example writing, presenting, networking, mentoring, or laboratory management. As with all your goals, frame this in the context of your current abilities.

Your Biosketch

This is your mini-CV, it should have details about your education, a personal statement, positions, scientific Appointments, and honors, and your contributions to science.

Your Personal Statement

Should be a first person description of your background, goals and expertise. You should highlight past accomplishments, and any mitigating circumstances/gaps in your record. You should explain why you are uniquely suited for this fellowship. You should include four publications/products as evidence for your expertise/fit. Try to keep it short, under 300 words.

Framing Your Contributions to Science

One way to do this is to break it down by career stage (predoctoral, doctoral, postdoctoral). Another way is to break it down by research field (if you have done work in different areas). For each contribution you can include up to four example products to demonstrate your contribution. These can include:

As of January 25, 2025 you do not need to include scholastic performance (see NOT-OD-24-107), leave that part blank or enter N/A

Resources

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