Print This Post
How early-career researchers can strengthen their track record, boost their research proposal and assess institutional fit.
An Early-career research fellowship plays a key part in helping researchers to move from supervised work to greater independence. The intense competition, however, can make the application process daunting for early-career researchers (ECRs). Based on our experience of running a successful fellowship support structure in the chemistry department at University College London (UCL), through which we have supported more than 40 ECRs, this guide offers practical advice to help you to strengthen your application at every stage.
Our programme at UCL combines clear online guidance for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers with tailored advice from experienced colleagues. It is designed to help applicants to assess their readiness, refine their proposals and understand how their work would sit within a wider research community. Although the scheme is based at our department, the principles behind it are broadly applicable to ECRs applying for fellowships at other institutions.
Drawing on the lessons from this support structure, our guidelines aim to help you by tackling three questions. How can you determine whether your track record is suitable for your chosen fellowship? How can you develop and formulate a winning research programme for your application? And how can you select the most appropriate university to host you as a future fellow?
By answering these questions, we hope to give you the tools to see your application through the eyes of a reviewer. This, together with your enthusiasm for your research, is one of the most powerful ways to strengthen your application.
Get started early
Early planning for a fellowship application is hugely important. Thinking about your application throughout your PhD and early postdoctoral studies enables you to develop your research activities and CV, and to tailor them to strengthen your future application. Map out key milestones that you want to achieve and include in applications, such as publication submissions, conference presentations, preliminary data generation and funding applications, and create your own deadlines for these ahead of the real fellowship deadlines.
Evaluate your track record
Research fellows are expected to conduct independent scientific research and break new ground. Reviewers therefore look for evidence of emerging leadership and independence.
Leadership. Reviewers often assess leadership through conventional quantitative indicators, such as first-author journal publications in leading journals of your field or in book chapters. Co-corresponding, last-author or single-author publications can also be strong signals of independence and leadership, although these are not common at the PhD stage. When publication is restricted by confidentiality, alternative evidence might come from patents, patent applications and demonstrable leadership in running research projects.
Increasingly, funders also use narrative CVs, which enable applicants to highlight broader qualitative contributions beyond publication metrics. These might include mentoring, open science, outreach, team-building, contributions to research culture and service to the wider community.
Reviewers should also take context into account, including justified personal leave, career breaks and differences in the level of support available to ECRs at previous institutions.
Independence. Independence will be judged by your ability to secure small grants for research or travel, conference attendance, corresponding or last authorship and outreach activities. Other indicators are a move to a different university from where you did your PhD or the development of research collaborations. Although methodological overlap with previous supervisors is inevitable, your proposed research should clearly establish your own unique direction.
Tailored benchmarking. To tailor your proposal to a specific fellowship and assess your competitiveness, examine the profiles of previous fellowship winners, which can often be found on the funders’ websites. Review their publication records and CVs at the time of applying and use them to infer what the funder values most, and match this to your application.
Develop your winning research proposal
The quality and novelty of your proposed research is crucial for securing a fellowship. Successful proposals score highly on significance, novelty and impact, as well as feasibility and your network of productive collaborations.
Significance, novelty and impact. Significant research addresses an important gap in scientific knowledge, and novelty overcomes this barrier in a substantively different way, for example, with a new theoretical model, approach or methodology. Impact refers to the changes that successful research can bring about in science and the benefits it can deliver for society.
But how does this apply to your research idea? What is regarded as significant and novel depends strongly on the specific scientific field. As you develop as a scientist, use your fact-finding mindset to spot gaps in knowledge in the research field. Read reviews in top journals and discuss your ideas with research leaders. In particular, ask where they see the most important unresolved questions; which approaches are considered high risk or transformative; and what distinguishes incremental from field-changing work.
Judge the significance of your research idea by discussing with your mentor whether it unlocks a new scientific direction and produces more questions. Use the abstracts of previously successful fellows to assess whether your proposal falls in the funder’s remit and matches their ‘risk appetite’ and taste for societal impact. A funder’s risk appetite refers to how bold or exploratory proposals can be: some favour highly innovative, high-risk ideas, whereas others prioritize more-incremental but reliable advances. By analysing successful abstracts, you can identify patterns in the level of ambition expected and how winning applicants frame impact.
Feasibility and network. Although it is all very well proposing something new, the reviewer needs to be convinced that you can deliver your research aims. You can achieve this by establishing that your approach is the best one to solve the problem. Critically compare your approach with alternative methods, considering its ease of use, potential risks, likely insights and overall scope. For example, if your proposal depends on a new experimental method, compare it directly with established approaches: explain what it adds, where it might fail and what alternative routes would enable the project to continue. This reassures reviewers that the proposal is ambitious but deliverable.
You need to prove that you are the best person to develop and execute the approach by arguing that it requires your specific skill set, using your track record as evidence.
Science is rarely done alone, so it’s also important to explain how your collaborations will help you to achieve your research aims. Mention the key researchers you plan to work with, both at your host institution and elsewhere. At the same time, make sure it’s clear that you are leading the project, not just taking part in someone else’s. You should also include a work plan for future group members, to show that the project is set up for a team rather than just for you.
Pitch your proposal idea
Your proposal’s abstract should be clear and engaging. A strong abstract should first address five points, each described in a single sentence: the importance of the topic; a key barrier that prevents the field from progressing; your solution to the problem; details of how you will address this; and its impact for science and society. Abstracts from articles in Nature or Science often follow this format.
After writing a draft, ask for critical feedback from colleagues inside and outside your discipline. The latter’s comments are key for making the abstract accessible for a non-specialist reader. Make sure to read the abstracts of successful projects on the funder’s website. It might also help to read your abstract with fresh eyes, by setting it aside for a week before coming back to it. The finalized abstract should be accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of the field.
Finally, include a figure to convey the core scientific concept and hint at its significance and impact. A good figure should be self-explanatory and take only a few seconds to understand. For inspiration, look closely at the figures used in major journals and think about the aesthetic of your image — often, less is more.
Pick and work with your host university
Choosing the host for your fellowship application depends on several factors. These include the standing of the department and the university, research facilities, opportunities for collaboration and, of course, its potential for enabling you to conduct your research and to develop as an independent researcher. Keep an eye out for any ‘expression of interest’ deadlines that your chosen host organization might have. The institution will ideally have a support structure for ECRs and fellowship applicants.
Once the host’s shortlisting is complete, whether or not you are selected, the local fellowship-support lead should provide feedback on how to strengthen your proposal and CV. Universities usually offer generic guidance and constructive criticism through one-to-one support for proposal writing. Finish your proposal draft two months in advance of the final submission deadline to be able to revise the application on the basis of feedback from the host organization.
You also need time to work through key details in the application, such as fellowship costings, supporting studentships and access to required infrastructure. Do not expect anyone to rewrite your proposal. Too much help is not to your advantage — successful early-career fellows must ultimately carry the project by themselves. After being invited for an interview, the fellowship lead might also organize mock interviews to help you to practise your presentation and become familiar with typical interview questions to ultimately secure your hard-earned fellowship.
Professor Louise Serpell
Nature Careers Blog
Dementia Researcher
