NIH All About Grants Podcast: Fellowship Changes

David Kosub >> The fellowship application process is changing come January 2025, but the changes are the result of many engagements and communication with the extramural research community over the last several years. What does this actually mean for your application? What about its review? Well, let's get into these topics and more in this edition of the NIH All About Grants podcast.

From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. This is all about grants.

David Kosub >> All right. Well, welcome to the show. I'm glad to say that we have with us two guests to talk about fellowship changes. We have Doctor Alison Gammie. She's the director of training and workforce development at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. And we also have doctor Lystranne Maynard-Smith She is a scientific review officer with the center for Scientific Review, and I welcome you all both to the show. All right. Well, let's jump right in. Lystranne can you tell us why are these changes happening?

Lystranne Maynard-Smith >> Thanks, David. And thank you for having me on the show. Um, these changes are happening because at CSR, we heard a lot of concern from the external community about fellowship review, about the effectiveness of actually finding great candidates. And so we convened a working group. We worked with the external community by issuing an RFI just to get additional information about what was needed in fellowship review. And with all of that, we've decided to implement these changes, because we really want to broaden the scope of what we think would be a successful candidate for fellowships. So we want to broaden the scope of who is a successful candidate. What types of training would actually could be successful in gaining a fellowship proposal. And so that's the main reason why we are changing the fellowship review criteria and the instructions. We want to clarify and simplify the instructions to make it as accessible as possible to more Um, promising candidates in the external community.

David Kosub >> So to broaden the scope, what exactly are the differences? Allison, maybe you can take this one.

Alison Gammie >> Yeah. Happy to take it. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me today. Um, there are some changes to the application. As Lystranne mentioned, you can't really change the review without on a large scale, without changing the application itself. And what we've done, as she mentioned, was to simplify and reorganize the application, condensing it to fewer sections, a revision of the overall headings just to orient the candidates as they apply. Cutting it down to a certain extent, and I think importantly for many people, that their academic grades are no longer part of the application. So that that's some of the structural pieces, the kind of conceptual changes are a focus on the candidate themselves, and this includes their preparedness for the training and then their training potential that they're outlining in the proposal. And, um, so they have an opportunity to talk about what skills they want to develop during the training period and how this training plan is well suited to give them the skills they need to transition to the next step in their career in the pathway. And an important component as as we mentioned, we're trying to get away from the prestige of the sponsor and the prestige of the institution and have it be much more about the training potential. And is this the right environment for the individual to get the training they need? So there's a switch of focus from just describing sort of maybe the entire research training environment to honing in on what does this particular person need. And that's true from the sponsor's perspective as well. How will the sponsor help this individual to transition to the next stage. So it's really a change of focus. There's structural pieces to it. But they're also very large conceptual changes as well.

David Kosub >> Yeah, thanks for that. Good to hear about the grades not being a factor anymore and that you're focusing more on the person, you know, recognizing that. What should the applicants be thinking about? You know, you rolled off a lot of changes going on there. But if I was the applicant, how can I put this into my application?

Alison Gammie >> One of the things that anybody can start on now, even in advance of getting the specific application instructions, is to think about their overall training goals and what has prepared them for this particular training experience. Conducting a self-assessment sort of what skills do I have? What skills do I need? How will I get these during this training period? And then finally there's a, there's a new section that's a little bit about just giving their overall scientific perspective as a biomedical scientist, sort of big picture ideas and overall goals from a scientific perspective. Then there's the research training plan, which has a component which is a sort of career development piece. But then there is the drilling down specifically to the research training project. And that's sort of what people used to think was the entire application, which is all about the science. And that's an incredibly important component of it, without a doubt. And that's something that they can continue to work on. And that's the actual science and the specific aims that they have for that. And so that's something that they can work on as well. And that's just speaking from the candidate perspective. Obviously there are things that the sponsor can be thinking about as well, in terms of working with them to develop a really thoughtful training plan. And Lystranne I don't know if you have anything you want to add. Yeah.

Lystranne Maynard-Smith >> Thanks, Alison. The only thing I would add would be, you know, you could the candidates could start thinking about who they would like to ask for those reference letters. The reference letters will change. There will be different instructions for the reference letters, but identifying those persons who can actually write reference letters for the candidates for their fellowship application, that's a good place to start as well. And um, one thing that has not changed after this process is that the candidate will still work, um, you know, hand in hand with the sponsor in developing their research training plan as well as the research training project, as well as their research training plan, overall training goals and overall scientific goals. So it's always good to get started on that as early as possible. Have those conversations with your mentor, you know, flesh out your scientific perspective and really try to get a handle on who your reference letter writers would be.

David Kosub >> We all both hit on this the research training plan and the science all about the science. Um, is there anything more that you all can add for the listeners to kind of help tell the difference between these two parts of the application, or to kind of address them a little bit differently?

Alison Gammie >> Yeah. I think that the research training plan is the overall period of time. And with the knowledge that this is a training period for this individual. And so they're not going to spend it all at the bench or at the computer, depending on your research area, so that there are other enriching activities that the individual will be participating in. That's an incredibly important part of a person's developmental period. So that just thinking about that, what courses or seminars or journal clubs or other mentors. Just think overall what how can this person, um, develop over this period of time within that? So within that, a very key part of a research training plan is having a research training project. And so the project is integral and extremely important. But what we want to emphasize is that this is not a research project grant. You're not only getting judged based on the, you know, cutting edge science or the or the innovation or the significance of the science. What it's really about is will this scientific project fit within this larger training project to give the person the skills that they need? Obviously, if you're doing cutting edge science and all of those sorts of things, it's a it's a positive. It's not a negative, but it shouldn't be the only thing that's that a that a fellowship is judged on. It shouldn't be just the prestige of the sponsor or how innovative the project is or the institution you're coming from. It should be about the training potential.

Lystranne Maynard-Smith >> Yes. And to add on to what Alison just said, the research training project, the science itself, we really want candidates to think of using the science as a training tool. Candidates and sponsors. The science itself in the project is a training tool, and it should be aligned with the candidate's long term career and scientific research goals. And so in addition to the research training project, which is the scientific project, there's also non bench skills that are also important in order to make sure that candidates can actually develop into independent and productive researchers, regardless of what field they decide to go into. So these could include professional development, being able to, you know, concisely and write grants or publications, networking, going to conferences, giving presentations. And so not only is the actual bench science important, but all of the other training opportunities that they can have within this training period is also part of what we consider the training potential of the candidates. So it is um, the focus is not only on the science. The science is going to be used as a training tool, but we're really trying to, as Allison said, conceptually focus on the individual and look to see how is this entire research training plan, including the scientific project as well as the non bench skills. How is that going to be used to develop this candidate and get them to where they want to be for their career and scientific goals?

David Kosub >> Using the science as a training tool, I like that in both. Y'all have been touching on the mentor and the sponsor and the, you know, moving away from the prestige of, you know, where someone may be going, but, you know, if we're putting these applications together, the mentor is important as y'all have been going through. Is there any additional info or thoughts you can provide as it relates to what the mentor should be doing, what the sponsor should be doing?

Alison Gammie >> So one of the things that was very important from the original working group was to make sure that early stage students weren't at a disadvantage because of the perceived lack of expertise. And so we really wanted to have an opportunity for the mentors to talk about their mentoring philosophy, any kind of, um, uh, to, to talk about their, um, values and as a mentor, rather than just how many people had potentially passed through their lab over the years. It's clear that just having people pass through your lab doesn't mean you were a great mentor, necessarily. And so the worry is that if you just go by sort of how long a person's been in the system and how many people have gone on to do other things, that that would be counted as the metric for being a good mentor. And we wanted to have an opportunity for individuals to really talk about their mentoring style and their mentoring philosophy and to give examples, but they don't even have to have been in their own laboratory. It might have been kind of, uh, informal mentoring that occurred when they were they themselves were students or postdocs. Um, so there's that opportunity. And I think that the main thing we wanted to have in this section was to make sure that it wasn't just, um, kind of generic language. It really what is the sponsor going to do for this person, for this candidate. And so that it's tailored, it's specific. It's very thoughtful given that particular candidate. So you don't want to get it to be the case that once you have perfected certain language that works for a fellowship application, that you can just keep using it over and over again. It really should be tailored to the individual, the commitment to this individual and their future career choices and pathway. So Lystranne I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that, but that was just the thought around the sponsor's commitment.

Lystranne Maynard-Smith >> Yeah, the only thing I would add would be just a similarly, as we told the candidates that they should be talking to their sponsors about their scientific goals and their professional goals. Similarly, sponsors should also be talking to the candidate's individual candidates about what their scientific and professional goals are so that the training plans would actually be aligned with each other, and that means will be a bigger support to the candidate in reaching and developing to those long term goals. So it's really, really important, as Alison mentioned, for it to be individualized to the candidate. We really are trying to focus on the individual candidate, broaden the scope and make sure that this is the most promising training tool that could be used to help develop the candidate for their future goal.

David Kosub >> So, you know, being here at NIH, we all know that not every grant gets funded. You spend a lot of time working on an application. You've worked with your mentor, you've gotten a lot of things down on paper, but you may not have gotten that award this time. It may not have scored well or whatever the reason might be. Do y'all have any advice for moving forward in situations like that, for people in these positions who are applying?

Lystranne Maynard-Smith >> So there's always the opportunity to resubmit the application. And so what I would advise candidates to do would be, first of all, start early on your applications and really use the comments from the reviewers in the application. Speak to the program officer. Reach out to the program officer because the program officer also is in attendance at the meeting, listening in so they will understand what was happening in the meeting. If your application was discussed or if it's not discussed, they'll be able to give you some context from the review comments that you have in your summary statement. But it's really, really important to use the reviewers comments in the summary statement and resubmit, because many times, you know you may not get it on the first try. But if you take those comments, incorporate them, and really focus on what the review criteria is, then that increases your chances. Also, pay very close attention to the review criteria when you are writing your application, because that is how reviewers are going to assess your application. So make sure that you are covering all of the assessments that are asked for in the review criteria to make sure that you have a better chance of being successful through peer review, because you have to be successful in peer review in order to move on to the next stage of potential funding.

Alison Gammie >> Yeah, that's wonderful advice. I think I'll give a little on the level of how crushing it can feel to not be funded, and to sometimes get criticisms that feel a little harsh. Um, and that's inevitable when things are written down and they're not delivered in person, but to try to take all of the positive feedback as much as possible and incorporate that into the application, as well as potentially even into the project itself. Even if it's never funded, you can still get some great insight and feedback from individuals who have taken the time to read your scientific perspectives and your research, training project and other such things. Finally, if it's at all possible, and I know it's really hard is to not take it too personally, is that it can feel like a personal kind of criticism and it can be very crushing. But just to say, okay, well, you know, you certainly won't get it if you don't apply. That is a guarantee you will not get the fellowship if you don't apply. That is a that's the one guarantee. But we have wonderful data that says that people try, who try, who kind of pick themselves up and try again and keep trying. They're the ones who ultimately are successful. So it can be hard and discouraging. But knowing that this is the part of the process, it's not personal. This is how the system works, is just try to encourage people to keep at it, and those who keep at it tend to eventually get there. So that's the other advice.

David Kosub >> Yeah, no, I completely echo and hear those sorts of statements. Um, we do have some podcasts for those who are listening on, you know, resubmission and some other things that y'all could take into account and other things to consider. I mean, talk to program staff, talk to colleagues, talk to your own colleagues at your institution. And, you know, share your critiques and see what they have to say to kind of help you, you know, advance your project next time. Um, well, you know, Liz Strand and Alison, this has been great to hear about the changes coming for fellowships. Um, any final thoughts? I always like to leave the opportunity to for any final thoughts for our listeners.

Lystranne Maynard-Smith >> I would say since these are going to be changes to both the instructions and the review criteria for fellowship, really, really take the time to read the NOFO, really take the time to read the instructions for fellowships. Make sure you understand the changes that are coming and reach out to your program officer to ask questions. Um, make sure you start early. Uh, collaborate and consult with your sponsor and mentor frequently. Um, and again, pay attention to that review criteria, because that is what reviewers are going to be trained on in order to assess your application. Um, these applications, uh, we get a lot of fellowship applications. All of these fellowship applicants are fantastic candidates. Um, and so it's very hard to distinguish between them and the way that reviewers are trained to distinguish between them is by relying on the review criteria. So it's really, really important to keep the review criteria in mind when you are, um, putting your applications together. Talk to your sponsors, talk to mentors. Talk to others who've gone through the fellowship review process, even if it's the, uh, even with the changes, just having that experience and listening to how people have adjusted or modified their, um, applications, if they haven't gotten, if they didn't get it the first time, those are all very valuable experiences. Um, and as Allison said, try not to take it too personally because reviewers do have a job. They are asked to like, make these distinctions, and they use the review criteria to try to objectively make these distinctions as much as possible. So start early, contact your program officer, pay attention to the changes. Read the NOFO. Read the instructions. Pay attention to section five of the NOFO, which is the review criteria, And work as hard as you can to get your application in. Because, as Allison says, if you don't put your application in, you won't have a chance to actually, you know, be successful in getting a fellowship.

Alison Gammie >> Wow. That's great. And I the only thing I would add that was fantastic advice is to just really specifically talk to those of you who are at, um, organizations or in laboratories that have traditionally, in the past, not been successful in getting these fellowships is to just give it another shot, because the whole goal of this was to broaden the pool of individuals who are competitive for getting these fellowships. And so if you're hearing at your organization, oh, we don't submit those because we never get them. Just say, but they've changed things. And the goal is they changed them specifically to welcome individuals like me. So please bring this information to those individuals at your organization who may be discouraging you from applying and saying, well, let's give it another shot. So we really would love to see more applications from a broad range of organization types and laboratory types. And, you know, with sponsors across the career spectrum. And that would be considered a huge success.

David Kosub >> Well, Allison and Lystranne , thank you again for giving us your advice and your thoughts on the fellowship application process and peer review and what's coming in January 2025. You know, to echo what they said, definitely check out the resources that we have available on our site. Talk to as many people as you can. Consider resubmitting all that good stuff. Um, it'll definitely be helpful. This has been David Kosub with NIH�s all about grants. Thank you.