Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The National Science Foundation (NSF), through its Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), offered the Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (Funding Opportunity No. 09-573) as an individual fellowship program meant to support recent PhD recipients at the very beginning of their postdoctoral careers. The central purpose is to give early-career scientists the freedom to pursue a well-justified research and training plan in the setting that best fits their goals, rather than being limited by whether a particular lab or institution already has funding available to support them. In practice, the fellowship is structured to help new PhDs build independence quickly while still receiving strong, intentional mentorship from a sponsoring scientist at the host site. The program emphasizes both high-quality biology research and deliberate professional development, with the expectation that the fellow will come out of the award period better positioned to lead an independent research career.

For the FY 2010 cycle described in the solicitation, NSF BIO focused the fellowship competition on two thematic tracks: (1) Broadening Participation in Biology and (2) Biological Informatics. The Broadening Participation track aligns the scientific and training plan with goals related to strengthening participation and development of talent in biology, while Biological Informatics supports work that develops or applies computational, data, and information approaches to biological questions. NSF also makes clear that these target areas are not permanent; the specific focus areas can change in future years as science priorities and infrastructure opportunities evolve, and the solicitation would be updated accordingly. Regardless of track, the proposed research must address important contemporary questions that fall within the scope of the BIO Directorate, and the proposal must follow the solicitation-specific guidance for the chosen competition area.

A key feature is that these are awards to individuals rather than institutions. Applications are submitted directly by the applicant to NSF, and the fellow administers the award. Even though the award is made to the individual, the application must include statements from sponsoring scientists, and the fellow must be affiliated with a host institution. Eligible host institutions can include universities and colleges, nonprofit research institutes and museums, government agencies and laboratories, and in special cases for-profit organizations, and these host sites may be located anywhere in the world. The structure is designed to place the fellow in an environment that maximizes the quality of the training and the scientific payoff, while also ensuring day-to-day mentorship and research support from an established sponsor.

Eligibility is tightly defined and is treated as a strict gatekeeper: if any requirement is not met, the application is returned without review. Applicants must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or U.S. permanent residents at the time of application. They must have earned or plan to earn a doctoral degree in a scientific or engineering field before the requested fellowship start date, and they must be very early in their postdoctoral timeline. Specifically, at the deadline they must either still be a graduate student or have held a position requiring the PhD for no more than 12 full-time months since earning the degree. There is also a mobility and independence expectation: the host institution and sponsoring scientist must be different from the institution where the applicant earned the doctoral degree and different from the applicant’s current position. In addition, applicants cannot already have substantial federal PI/co-PI funding (more than $20,000, excluding graduate fellowships and dissertation improvement grants), and they must avoid overlapping submissions and roles at NSF. The same project cannot be submitted concurrently to another NSF program (with the noted exception of the International Research Fellowship program), and the applicant cannot be a named participant on any other NSF proposal (including standard research proposals) submitted during the same time as the fellowship application, regardless of who is listed as PI on those proposals.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, the opportunity is categorized as a discretionary grant within the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity area, under CFDA 47.074 (Biological Sciences). NSF anticipated making about 15 awards. The posting date was July 16, 2009, with an original and current full proposal deadline of October 14, 2009, and the opportunity was later archived on July 21, 2010. The estimated award amounts ranged from an award floor of $123,000 to an award ceiling of $189,000, with no cost sharing or matching requirement. Overall, the program is framed as both a research investment and a workforce development tool, using a competitive fellowship model to support promising biologists right as they transition from doctoral training into independent research careers.

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