Summer Graduate Fellowships

The Graduate Fellowship program provides recipients with training and resources needed to enhance their applications to external funding opportunities.

Institute-affiliated graduate students who are interested in applying for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP), NIH National Research Service Award (NRSA), or an equivalent program are strongly encouraged to apply to this program.

The program lasts for three months over the summer and comes with a stipend of up to $5,000.
Graduate Fellows attend a short grant-writing workshop where they will write an NIH F31 (predoctoral) or F32 (postdoctoral) application. This workshop, frequently led by Professor Nicole Landi, will provide participants with valuable professional development, helping them strengthen their grant writing skills and their applications for external funding. Over the summer, they will draft the scientific portion of the application.
As part of the workshop, fellows participate in an NIH-style mock review panel, during which they will review peer applications.
Students are expected to develop the application with some mentorship from their major advisor, but the application should primarily be the student's own work.
Students will be assigned a mentor to help them develop their application/proposal.

Any IBACS-affiliated graduate student can apply for a Graduate Fellowship.

Graduate students working on topics related to the IBACS mission are eligible to apply, with priority given to students working across traditional disciplinary boundaries. This includes:

Non-US citizens who are not eligible for federal funding. For students who cannot apply for NIH or NSF fellowships, their primary advisor may develop a grant proposal related to the applicant’s research and names the student as a collaborator.
UConn Health graduate students. Applicants from UConn Health may apply for a Graduate Fellowship and attend the workshop, but they are not eligible to receive fellowship funds due to their existing 12-month stipends. However, the Institute can provide these students with a $1,000 award for conference travel.
The Institute will review other applicants on a case-by-case basis. For example, if a non-UConn graduate student is applying for a post-doc position with a UConn faculty member and plans to submit an NSF-GRP, they may be invited to attend the workshop at the instructor’s discretion. However, they would not be eligible for funding.

Preference will be given to applicants who have no other source of summer funding or are in receipt of summer funding that amounts to less than $5,000 from UConn or external funds (such as an NSF or NIH fellowship, a teaching contract, or a departmental stipend).

Restrictions

Graduate students who cannot dedicate at least 10 hours per week to the Graduate Fellowship may not apply. Please contact the Institute if you have questions.
Graduate students who previously received a Graduate Fellowship but did not subsequently submit an external fellowship application (or for non-U.S. citizens, your advisor did not subsequently submit an external grant application) are ineligible.

The fellowship provides recipients with up to $5,000. Outreach Fellowships do not cover tuition fees (they are exempt) or other expenses.

It is a condition of your award that you submit an application for external funding either as PI or with your PI.

Initial awards are funded at $2,000 and are issued on the first Thursday of May.
The Institute will provide recipients with an additional $3,000 once the external grant application is in submittable form (to be signed off by the advisor, in principle during the summer, but by no later than March 1st of the following year).
To be eligible to receive the additional $3,000, the external grant applied for must be for at least the amount needed to fund a student fully for an entire academic year (e.g. 20 hours a week at a GA rate, or whatever the applicable rate given the funding mechanism).
Non-U.S. Citizens will be required to apply for external funding through their advisor and will receive the full $5,000 in May.

Fellows must commit to attending a grant-writing workshop. The workshop typically starts the second week of May and meets in person for three days, although there are assignments due throughout the 3-months. The fellowship program will provide you with a writing mentor who has experience with similar applications.

As a condition of this award, faculty advisors of recipients will be asked to serve a one-year term on the IBACS Review Panel, reviewing seed grant, graduate fellowship, and undergraduate award applications.

Fellowship payments are subject to federal and state income taxes. Recipients will be responsible for any income taxes resulting from this fellowship.

It is your sole responsibility to report and pay taxes on the taxable portion of any fellowship, stipend, award, or grant they receive. Please be advised that fellowship payments used for travel, supplies, or equipment for your independent research are not exempt from taxation.

Fellowship payments, although taxable, are not subject to income tax withholding if paid to a U.S. citizen or resident alien. Consistent with IRS guidance, the University does not withhold taxes on the taxable portion of fellowships, stipends, awards, or grants except in limited circumstances involving nonresident aliens.

If you are a nonresident alien, federal income taxes may be required to be withheld from your payment unless you qualify for exemption by way of an income tax treaty between the United States and your country of tax residence. You may wish to consider making estimated federal and state income tax payments.

You may find additional details and answers to many frequently asked questions on the following websites:

Required Materials

All applicants must complete and submit the Graduate Fellowship Application by the deadline. You will be asked to provide the following materials with your application:

A tentative title for your research.
A summary of prior work (half page maximum).
A summary plan of current work (half page maximum).
A summary of the proposed topic for their externally funded fellowship application (one page max). For applicants who are ineligible for U.S. federal funding, this summary should propose the topic for which the primary advisor intends to seek external funding.
An up-to-date CV.
A letter of support from your primary advisor. A copy of the application will be sent automatically to your advisor for their approval. Your advisor must submit a letter of support within seven days to complete the application process. You are responsible for ensuring that your advisor submits the letter of support within this timeframe. Details will be provided once you submit your application. This letter should comment on the ability of the student to carry out the proposed project, the resources available to the project (e.g. lab space, lab equipment, technical support), a statement explaining how much support the advisor provided in writing and developing the project.

Review Criteria

Application reviewers will be asked to consider the following criteria, as well as the advisor’s separate statement:

Does the topic of the proposed external fellowship application fall within the remit of the Institute’s mission and/or strategic priorities?
Is the applicant’s progress, achievements, and potential likely to meet the criteria for externally funded pre- or post-doctoral fellowships?
What is the intellectual merit of the proposal?

Decisions on award are final, and IBACS reserve the right not to make an award.

Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences

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Eligibility Requirements

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