How to write a (postdoc) fellowship application

For a career in science, fellowships can be very important. This article is a guide for scientists working in academia who want (or need) to apply for a fellowship to get funding.

Guide for fellowship writing

This guide is a summary of several workshops on 'How to write a successful fellowship application' as well as my own experience when it comes to apply for a fellowship in the life sciences.
In most cases, researchers might want to apply for a fellowship (aka 'their own money') after finishing their PhD and when trying to find a postdoc position. Thus, I will use this example here but feel free to use this guide for your personal situation.

Do you really need a fellowship at all?

Short answer: yes! At least if you plan a career in academic research, you will have to show that you are able to write successful applications. More importantly, you will compete with many others who will have this additional qualification and many of them know the value of a prestigious fellowship.
Furthermore, you are more independent if your PI is not paying your salary and it allows you to work in labs that you choose on your own and not just because your future boss has an open position.

Which is the right fellowship for you?

That is completely dependent on your situation and your future plans. Be warned that each of the funding agencies has their own eligibility rules, deadlines, etc. It requires a lot of investigation (that means time) to find your way through their regulations and websites.

Your new group leader already wrote the application for you....

Yeah, great. Trash it! Seriously: the whole fellowship idea is based on supporting researchers that can formulate their own ideas and build an own research plan. If you just copy & paste what your PI gave to you, your proposal might look quite good, but you still don't know how to do it yourself!

Ok, it makes sense if your primary target is to get some money and you don't mind where it is coming from. Unfortunately, many funding agencies ask for personal interviews once you pass the first selection round. Now you are in real trouble once people realise that you have no clue about your own project! So better resist the temptation. You should however still read the draft and you might use it as starting point for your proposal.

So what should you do now?

• Plan ahead
  Don't underestimate the time and effort it takes to only find the fellowships you can apply for! It may take weeks. Also, some funding agencies have fixed application dates; some are only once per year! You should know these deadlines well in advance or you might loose a year or, even worse, might not be eligible to apply in the next round.

• Choose your future lab wisely
  This is particularly important for future postdocs: go to a good lab! That means: well-known institute and your future PI should be known in the field as well. During the review process, a panel of established scientists will evaluate your chances of succeeding with your project and with your future plans. Even if you hand in the best proposal in the history of science, they will turn it it down if you plan to do your project in weak lab.

At this point you might ask yourself: ”So wait a minute: Does this mean that I will only get a fellowship if I go to well-established labs with big names, Nature papers, etc?” You got it! At least the chances are much higher to be successful. That is particularly true for the prestigious fellowships. Sounds unfair? Welcome to science.

• Change the subject
  Another way to sabotage your own application in the most efficient way is to either stay in the lab in which you did (or still do) your PhD or to just go to another group that is working on the same subject. Although it sounds convenient to simply stay in the lab and follow the projects you've been working on for years: Don't do it! Go away, change the field of research. This means you will have to start again from zero on a new topic and you will have to find your way in another lab where things are done differently. And thats exactly what they want to see from a fellow! You will have to convince them that you are moving to wherever is the best place for your new project and that you are not afraid to learn something new. The tricky part is to find the right balance between the new area of research on the one hand and how you still make the connection with your expertise from before.

• Build your expertise
  Once you have an idea where to go and what to work on, you have to read like hell to find your way in the new area you will be working on. Become an expert, build your expertise and identify the main problems and questions in this field. Now you are ready to start writing.

• Start early and focus
  Writing a fellowship application is hard work and it will take strenuous efforts to compile a competitive proposal. I've spend several weeks in the library, quitting all bench work in the lab and I still had to work to the last day before the deadline. Start early and drop everything else when you realise that you are running short of time.

• Formulate a clear research plan
  Formulate a concise research proposal. Pay attention to introduce your subject properly as your reviewer might not be an expert in your field.

• Significance
  Most important: What is the significance of your project? Why should anyone care? Who will benefit from your research and how?

• Be ambitious, but not overambitious
  Your work plan should show that you plan to answer a significant scientific question. But be reasonable! How much can you really achieve in two/three years time?

• Provide a backup scenario
  How is your backup strategy? What will you do if your initial plan does not work as anticipated? This part is very important as it shows that you made up your mind about potential risks and pitfalls.

• Connect your research with your future career
  Explain in detail how your project will contribute to your personal development. You will learn some novel techniques? Point it out explicitly. You will make contacts with tons of people in dozens of countries? State that you will built your future career on the network that will arise from your project. And so on...

• Wall of text = fail
  Edit your proposal typographically. Structure it nicely and use paragraphs, indentations, bullet points, etc. If possible, use figures to support your story. Always remember that the guy who has to evaluate your project has twenty other proposals on his desk. In other words: your proposal should look beautiful.

• Customise your proposal
  Do not try to send the same application to several funding agencies. They all have not only their own requirements for the proposal itself (number of pages allowed, etc.) but they usually have mission. You will have to adapt your proposal to these constraints.

• Get help
  Get all the help you can get.

  • Talk to colleagues in the field.
  • Find the grant office or a similar facility in your future institute. They know a lot of the little formal tricks that you will never find out on your own.
  • Ask other fellows who successfully applied to your funding agencies for their advice and ask them for their proposals to use as a template for your own application. This is particularly helpful because you can see how they managed to fulfill the specific requirements of that fellowship.
  • You might also want to ask your colleagues to read your proposal and have their corrections. Not only on the science, but also on spelling and typos (after working on the proposal for some weeks or months you usually do not spot typos any longer, no matter how obvious...).

• Ask for letters of reference
  One should be from your supervisor. Of course, your future supervisor should not be asked for reference as he is biased. Find two other group leaders that are willing to provide a recommendation letter and make a smart choice here as well. Don't just take the next guy down the hall, but PIs who really have a connection to your work such as collaborators from other institutes or, even better, from other countries as it shows that you are already internationally well connected.

Finally

Its about competition. The numbers of applications are always much higher than the fellowships granted in the end. A 20% funding rate is already very good; often enough its around 5%.

What does this mean for you? First of all, don't get intimidated by the numbers! Yes, there is no guarantee that you will make it. But thats true for the other applicants as well. You should however submit a very strong application. Make it the best that you can. Then don't look at it for two or three days and take it up again to make it even better.

It is important to understand that not only the scientific part of the proposal but all the other parts (e.g. "scientific outreach", "impact on society", etc.) will have to be excellent.
In the end however, your goal is not to match some quality criteria of the funding agency. If that is an issue, you won't make it anyway. You will have to be better than the others and they will send excellent applications as well. Thats the race you'll have to win. It took me a while to accept that. If you don't feel comfortable with that or if you don't like to compete for funding to have a salary in the years to come, take this last advice: leave science immediately and look for a normal job.

Good luck.