EXTRAMURAL FELLOWSHIP SUPPORT for RBHS-BASED Ph.D. STUDENTS
The School of Graduate Studies – Biomedical and Health Sciences (SGS-BHS) strongly encourages predoctoral researchers to seek and obtain extramural funding to support their research and scholarly activities. In recognition of the effort required to prepare and submit these applications, we are providing an Extramural Funding Initiative program, offering an incentive for application submission and additional incentive for funded applications. See below for details.
Obtaining an individual predoctoral fellowship is a win-win for our predoctoral students and their mentors. In addition to the funding provided, the award of one of these highly competitive fellowships is evidence that our peers recognize the research proposed, and the student’s potential for a productive career in the biomedical sciences, is worthy of this accolade. We hope that each of you take advantage of this opportunity.
To further incentivize our students and mentors to submit individual fellowship grant applications, SGS-BHS is offering the following to PhD students from New Brunswick/Piscataway. Ph.D. students who work for RBHS PIs and are in one of the following graduate programs are eligible for this opportunity: Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Cell & Developmental Biology, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Exposure Science, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Neuroscience, and Physiology and Integrative Biology. For students in the Toxicology program, PhD students who work for faculty that are resident members of EOHSI or in RWJMS labs are eligible.
- Submission Incentive: A one-time incentive payment of $500 for PhD students who submit applications for individual fellowships to extramural federal, private or state funding agencies. The fellowship must cover at least $25,000 in annual stipend support for at least two years. This incentive is offered once to each student and does not depend on successful funding of the application.
- Award Incentive: For students who are awarded a competitive extramural fellowship providing at least $25,000 in annual stipend support, SGS-BHS will supplement their annual stipend by an additional $3,000 above the current SGS-BHS stipend. This will continue for the duration of the award, as long as the student remains at Rutgers in good academic standing.
Evidence of submission and/or award must be forwarded to the SGS-BHS office (Yelena Schroeder ys546@gsbs.rutgers.edu) and include the funding agency, amount of funding (stipend, fees, tuition, other) and funding duration. It is the responsibility of the student and the Program Director/Thesis Advisor to ensure that SGS-BHS receives this information in a timely manner.
Along with GradFund, our graduate school is happy to assist faculty and students with materials for NIH fellowship (F30/31/32) and NSF applications as well as training grants (T32). See below for workshops and courses as well as important resources with boilerplate paragraphs for fellowship and training grant applications. Please contact Janet Alder for additional help if needed.
Courses and Workshops in Grant writing for Biomedical Graduate Students
Grantwriting Fundamentals Workshop
Every spring SGS offers a workshop on how approach writing Fellowships which is helpful for students writing their thesis proposals and also submitting grants. The National Research Mentoring Network process is used to describe the structure and purpose of Specific Aims.
To watch the recording of the recent workshop on grant writing, click here
Fellowship Application Workshop
Every Fall the School of Graduate Studies hosts a workshop to help guide biomedical graduate students and their mentors in the grant application process so that they can identify fellowships for which students are eligible and learn how to submit a successful application.
Because a majority of our students are interested in research positions in academia or industry, we believe it is important for our students to gain more experience writing fellowships. Graduate student fellowships are a great way to support a student and are indicative of past success when applying for a postdoc or job. Rutgers graduate students have a great track record of obtaining grants.
1) Teresa Delcorso from GradFund talks about how her organization at Rutgers helps students identify funding opportunities and write the grant. We will also discuss which grants are open to non-US-citizens.
2) A faculty member who reviews F grants for the NIH talk about what makes an application stand out and get a good score.
3) A panel of graduate students and their PIs who have successfully obtained NIH, NSF, AHA, and NJ Commission funding talks about the application process and what made their proposal successful.
To watch the recording of the recent workshop on Fellowship Applications, click here
NIH Fellowship Grant Writing Training Group
The working group is for PhD students and junior postdoctoral fellows applying to the December cycle of extramural NIH fellowships (F30, F31, F32). Each week, fellows submit drafts of specific grant application components for peer review and comments by the grant coach. Fellows meet as a group with the grant coach for 1-hr a week to discuss parts of the grant application, sponsored programs, peer review, NIH review groups and institutes, responding to peer review critiques, and submission of the final grant application in December. This program starts every September and runs through December. It is organized by Lauren Aleksunes, PharmD, PhD who is the NJ ACTS Workforce Development Core Lead and NRMN Grant Coach. To find the next session and sign up, please click here and for more information email Dr. Aleksunes aleksunes@eohsi.rutgers.edu
Grant Writing Basics: Advanced Topics in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics [16:681:601]
The focus of this class is on writing Specific Aims pages of a biological research grant proposal. Topics include funding agencies, types of grants, forms, budgets, proposal format, and the review process. Students will be required to write and critique research proposals. Preparation for the writing of the research proposal required as part of the oral preliminary exam. To view a recent syllabus of the class, click here.
Advanced Studies in Neuroscience or Psychology to write an NRSA F31 Grant Proposal [16:830:504]
The purpose of the course is to facilitate each student's submission of an F31 application for the December deadline. You should have at least a year (preferably two to three years) of graduate training remaining. Most importantly, your proposal will need preliminary data so that reviewers can evaluate the quality of your proposed training in research. To view a recent syllabus of the class, click here.
Grant Resources for You
Are you searching for a boilerplate document that can be used to describe the Rutgers Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training for graduate students and postdocs that is compliant with NIH guidelines?
Download the Responsible Conduct of Research boilerplate for fellowship applications
Do you need the boilerplate document that can be used to describe the Rutgers Rigor and Reproducibility training for grad students and postdocs? This document is compliant with NIH regulations for fellowship applications?
Download the Rigor and Reproducibility boilerplate for fellowship applications
Do you need a boilerplate document that describes the Rutgers iJOBS career development program?
Do you need a boilerplate document that can be used to describe the Individual Development Plans at Rutgers for graduate students?
We also have versions for the NIH Description of Institutional Environment and Commitment to Training and Additional Educational Information that can be tailored to individual graduate programs and students upon request to Assistant Dean Janet Alder.
We also have successful NIH F applications, NSF, EPA, AHA, NJ state fellowships as well as diversity supplements for NIH grants that we can share upon request to Assistant Dean Janet Alder.
If you are faculty or administration considering applying for a training grant, you should reach out to the Training Grant Support Office in Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences (RBHS). We are a dedicated resource to the RBHS community providing support for training grants including both pre-award (preparation and submission of the grant) and post-award administration of the training program (Note: very different from a research grant or program project!). To find out more, please click here.