Blog – Am I Ready? Knowing When to Apply for Your First Research Fellowship

Every academic can probably tell you about their first fellowship application. For some, it will be a story of success. For others, it’s a story of disappointment. For all of them it will be a story with dashes of hope, stress and a sprinkle of self-doubt. The latter is because it can be really hard to tell if it is the right time to apply for your first fellowship. How are you supposed to know when the time is right? This was a question I asked myself constantly, especially when I applied for my first fellowship.

I fall into the camp of researchers who’s first application was unsuccessful. I was four years into my postdoc career and the opportunity arose to apply for a competitive, tenure-tracked, internally funded fellowship. I spent a long time putting together something that, to me, seemed absolutely watertight. I spoke with senior colleagues in the department, previous winners, took all the advice I could and landed on an idea that I felt had real merit. Looking back, however, I realised that my application probably failed because I didn’t meet the first criteria on today’s checklist.

Do you have a clear research question or direction?

When you do a PhD, it quickly becomes clear that it is a training programme. You are learning how to be a researcher. For the most part, your early days require a significant amount of guidance. As the project goes on you start to contribute more actively with ideas and potential branch points to the work. By the end of the project, you are probably a lot more independent than you were at the start but it’s rare to be in a position of really knowing with true conviction what your research specialty will be. This is what postdocs are for. Further opportunities to refine your research theme and ‘learn the trade’ so to speak. So how do you know when it’s time for that first fellowship? It’s when you can think of a question that is constantly tugging at your curiosity. Something you keep wondering and can’t get out of your mind. That is a clear indicator that you could be ready to carve out your own research path.

Are you ready to be independent and deliver on what you promise?

The second part of that is – what if you are successful? Now you have to actually do the thing you said you were going to do in your proposal. Do you have a clear idea of how you are going to go about this? What experiments you will run, what equipment you will need and what it could cost. A successful application isn’t just a CV bumper, it is a commitment to a piece of work. This doesn’t mean you need to have absolutely every detail set in stone. Part of the fellowship is to explore ideas and alternative ways of investigating them. You do, however, need a strong idea of how the work will be shaped practically. Would you give half a million quid to someone with an idea but no clue of how to explore it? Probably not.

Do mentors think you are ready?

Another good barometer for your readiness is the reactions of those who know you and your work the best. It can be hard for you personally to look at this with total objectivity. Mentors, supervisors, senior colleagues etc. can approach your progress with far more objectivity and distance. Ask them and listen to their answers. If they are saying things like ‘that could be a great project’ or ‘you are more independent now’ or if you find yourself needing their guidance far less, you could be in the right place. Conversely, if mentors think you could benefit from building a little more experience or refining your research direction, take that on board. Their role is to support you in applying when the time is right.

Do you have somewhere to do the work?

Back to the practical side now. Many fellowship applications are rejected because there isn’t a clear plan of where the work will be carried out. This is critical. Settling into a lab can take a few months. This is why most early career fellowships require you to have a host institution. Can you think of a department or lab (or even group) where your idea can be practically explored? It doesn’t matter how strong your proposal is. Without somewhere to work, someone to advise you and equipment to run your experiments, your application will fall apart. Your fellowship is a significant commitment for the host. If you find a lab or department is enthusiastic about hosting you, it’s a sign that you are proposing something that is exciting and doable.

Are you eligible?

The last one is really obvious but so easily overlooked. Every fellowship has eligibility criteria and they can be surprisingly specific: career stage, years since your PhD, citizenship, research area, host institution, even the type of contract you hold. Before you get swept up in the excitement of your idea, make sure you are eligible. It is the worst way to fail after all of that hard work.

If you are saying yes to most of these questions you are probably more ready than you think. Nobody ever feels 100% ready for that first application but readiness is about trajectory, not certainty. You may already be standing at the threshold and all you need to do now is step forward.

Dr Sam Moxon

Author

Dr Sam Moxon is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. His expertise falls on the interface between biology and engineering. His PhD focussed on regenerative medicine and he now works on trying to develop 3D bioprinting techniques with human stem cells, so that we better understand and treat degenerative diseases. Outside of the lab he hikes through the Lake District and is an expert on all things Disney.

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