National Institute of
General Medical Sciences

April 8, August 8, and December 8, or the following workday if the receipt deadline is a Saturday, Sunday, or Federal holiday. Applications must be submitted by these dates. (See the standard NIH due dates at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/submissionschedule.htm.)

The earliest award start date for applications submitted for the April 8 deadline is December; August 8 is April; and December 8 is July. Once a fellowship has been awarded, you have 6 months to activate (start) it.

The most recent forms and instructions for the F32 fellowship application can be accessed through the NIH Web site for unsolicited applications at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/parent_announcements.htm. Check the F32 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the most recent details for submitting an application. (Current forms and instructions are at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/424/index.htm#inst.)

Postdoctoral researchers participating in mentored research training are eligible to apply for F32 fellowships seeking to enhance one's potential to develop into a productive, independent researcher. Senior fellowships (F33) are for experienced scientists who wish to make major changes in the direction of their research careers or who wish to broaden their scientific background by acquiring new research capabilities. F33 awards are targeted to individuals with at least seven years of research experience beyond the doctorate, and who have progressed to the stage of independent investigator. In most cases, F33 awards are used to support sabbatical experiences.

By the time of award, the individual must be a citizen or a non-citizen national of the United States or have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence (i.e., possess a currently valid Permanent Resident Card USCIS Form I-551, or other legal verification of such status).

Before a Kirschstein-NRSA postdoctoral fellowship award can be activated, the individual must have received a PhD, MD, DO, DC, DDS, DVM, OD, DPM, ScD, EngD, DrPH, DNSc, ND (Doctor of Naturopathy), PharmD, DSW, PsyD, or equivalent doctoral degree from an accredited domestic or foreign institution. Certification by an authorized official of the degree-granting institution that all degree requirements have been met is also acceptable.

Before submitting the application, the candidate must identify a sponsor(s) who will supervise the proposed mentored training experience. Candidates are encouraged to identify more than one sponsor, i.e., a sponsor team, if this is deemed advantageous for their training program.

One can provide an explanation for the gaps in the candidate section or biosketch personal statement of the application.

In the personal statement of the biosketch, one may cite up to four publications or research products that highlight your experience and qualifications for this project. Research products can include, but are not limited to, audio or video products; conference proceedings such as meeting abstracts, posters, or other presentations; patents; data and research materials; databases; educational aids or curricula; instruments or equipment; models; protocols; and software or netware. Use of hyperlinks and URLs to cite these items is not allowed. One can cite interim research products. Note: interim research products have specific citation requirements. See Interim Research Product Frequently Asked Questions for more information.

NRSA postdoctoral fellowships are for training, and training potential is one of the criteria that reviewers and program staff evaluate. However, if you are planning to acquire new skills and techniques, becoming familiar with a new system, or studying a new aspect of the organism that you worked with in graduate school, it may make sense for you to apply for a fellowship. If your postdoctoral work is in the same general area as your graduate work, you should emphasize the opportunities for new training and explain how that new training relates to your long-term career goals.

NIGMS considers time spent in the sponsor's lab when making funding decisions. If you have been in your current sponsor's lab for more than 2 years at the time you submit your application, it may not be considered for funding. Extenuating circumstances leading to interruptions in research training may be considered for competitive applications. Potential applicants should consult program staff to discuss their individual situation before submitting an application.​

It is important to justify your choice of a lab in which to do a second postdoc in terms of how the research relates to what you did in your first postdoc and to your career goals.

Yes, if there is no laboratory doing comparable research in the United States or are resources in the foreign laboratory that are not available in comparable laboratories in the United States. In your application, you must provide a rationale for doing postdoctoral research in a foreign country, which reviewers and program staff will evaluate. Be aware that if an award is made, the process will take extra time, since special arrangements must be made for paying the stipend and institutional allowance.

Candidates for fellowship awards are expected to write the Research Training Plan, and the sponsor should review a draft of the plan and discuss it in detail with the applicant. Review by other knowledgeable colleagues is also helpful. Although fellowship applications do not require extensive experimental detail usually incorporated into regular research grant applications, a fundamentally sound Research Training Plan should be provided.

See the NOFO and SF424 Application Guide for details on which party (Candidate or Sponsor) are responsible for which sections.

Visit https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process/write-application/advice-on-application-sections/reference-letters for details on how to select a referee, instructions to provide to referees, and the reference letter submission process.

Regardless of career stage, the primary sponsor must demonstrate a commitment to ensuring the candidate receives tailored training that will facilitate their skills development and career advancement. Candidates are encouraged to identify more than one sponsor, i.e., a sponsor team, if this is deemed advantageous for their training program. When there is a sponsor team, one individual must be identified as the primary sponsor.

See Section IV. Application and Submission Information of the NOFO and SF424 Application Guide for expectations of the Research Training Plan. It is important to relate the proposed research to the candidate's scientific career goals. Explain the relationship between the candidate's research on the fellowship award and the sponsor's ongoing research program. The Research Training Plan is expected to be tailored to the experience level of the candidate and to allow him/her to develop the necessary skills for further career advancement.

Yes. All fellowship applicants must include a plan to obtain instruction in the responsible conduct of research. This plan should document prior instruction in responsible conduct of research during the applicant's current career stage (including the dates of last occurrence) and propose a plan to receive instruction in responsible conduct of research. The plan must address the five instructional components, format, subject matter, faculty participation, duration of instruction, and frequency of instruction, as outlined and explained below. The plan may include career stage-appropriate, individualized instruction or independent scholarly activities that will enhance the applicant's understanding of ethical issues related to their specific research activities and the societal impact of that research. The role of the sponsor/mentor in responsible conduct of research instruction must be described. Applications lacking a plan for instruction in responsible conduct of research will be considered incomplete and may be delayed in the review process. Candidate should consult with their institution for sample language. Full details about this policy requirement can be found in the NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-10-019 and NOT-OD-22-055.

See Section II. Award Information of the NOFO to determine application types allowed. In most cases, a resubmission is allowed. See https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process/submit/submission-policies/resubmission-applications for details regarding resubmission applications.

If you can address most or all the reviewers' concerns and you haven't exceeded the NIGMS limit for time already spent in the current sponsor's lab, you should talk to your sponsor about the possibility of resubmitting. Receipt deadlines for resubmissions are April 8, August 8 and December 8. You should address the reviewers' comments and describe the progress that you've made since you submitted the original application. Your publication list and your sponsor's information should be updated, if necessary.

Yes. Reviewers for the resubmission will not have access to the letters and appendix materials that accompanied the previous version.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant review process can take between 8 and 20 months after the due date. See https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process for details on the NIH grant process including review.

You should contact the Scientific Review Officer (SRO) who oversees the study section in which your application will be reviewed. You'll find the SRO's name and contact information in your eRA Commons account, which will be available about a month after you submit your application. See https://grants.nih.gov/help/ic-staff-roles#scientific-review-officers for a comprehensive list of NIH Staff and their roles during the grant life cycle.

The revised fellowship review criteria, effective for receipt dates on or after January 25, 2025, is intended to help reviewers to better evaluate a candidate's potential and the quality of their research training plan without the undue influence of the sponsor's or institution’s reputation, and ensure that the information provided in the application is targeted to the fellowship candidate's specific training needs and aligned with restructured review criteria. The revised peer review criteria will apply to the following activity codes: F30, F31, F32, F33, F99/K00. See Changes to the Fellowship Review Criteria | Grants & Funding for more details.

Typically, within one week of the study section meeting, your application's priority score will be available through your eRA Commons account. Your priority score is determined by calculating the mean score from all the study section members impact scores (1-9) for your application and multiplying the average by 10. This gives a possible scoring range of 10 (best) to 90 (worst). Note that this overall score is not an average of the individual criterion scores. Contact your program director to find out whether your priority score is likely to be in the fundable range after you receive your Summary Statement.

The reviewer comments or "summary statement" will be available in the NIH Commons about four or six weeks after the study section meets.

The SRO prepares the summary statement that contains:

• Overall resume and summary of review discussion (if discussed).
• Written critiques by the assigned reviewers, including scores for the five main review criteria.
• Overall Impact score and percentile (if discussed; also, not all applications receive a percentile).
• Study Section recommendations.
• Budget recommendations.
• Administrative notes of special consideration.

The summary statement becomes the official IC record of the recommendations made by the peer review committee. Once the summary statement is available, you may contact your program officer (listed on the summary statement) if you have any questions.

The Notice of Award (NoA), the official notification that your grant has been funded, is emailed to the grantee organization for your grant application, with a copy to the PI/PD. The program officer assigned to the grant may contact the principal investigator to give informal news of an award, but the NoA is the official documentation. When NIH issues the NoA, the document is made available to grantee officials and corresponding PD/PIs in the eRA Commons through the Status module. The eRA Commons is the official repository for the NoA document.

Three factors determine the term of a fellowship. The first factor is the study section, which may recommend a term that is shorter than what you requested (see "Committee Budget Recommendations" at the end of your summary statement). The second factor is whether you have been on an NRSA postdoctoral training grant or have had an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship previously. If so, the term of your fellowship will be adjusted so that your total NRSA postdoctoral support does not exceed 3 years. The third factor is the time that you have already spent in your current sponsor's lab.

The HHS Secretary sets National Research Service Awards (NRSA) stipend levels and adjusts them periodically to reflect increases in the cost of living, as specified in 42 U.S. Code § 288(b)(5). The stipends provided to recipients of NRSA support offset the cost-of-living during the period of training and are not considered equivalent to salaries or other forms of compensation provided to individuals supported on research grants. FY2024 stipend levels are provided in NOT-OD-24-104.

Stipend levels range from 0, for freshly minted PhDs, to 7 (current fellowship stipends are available at http://grants.nih.gov/training/nrsa.htm). Your stipend level is determined by the amount of time that you'​ve spent doing biomedical research-related activities (research, teaching, or clinical) since you earned your Ph.D. or another terminal degree. The relevant experience can be in your current sponsor's lab, elsewhere, or both. If you earned two terminal degrees (e.g., an M.D. and a Ph.D.), we calculate your stipend based on when you earned the first degree.

Level 1. Your stipend level in year 1 will be the one for which you were eligible when you were offered the fellowship, regardless of when you activate (start) the fellowship.

Yes. Every year, your stipend will be one level higher than it was in the previous year. For example, if you are paid at level 2 in the first year of your fellowship, you'll be paid at level 3 in the second year and at level 4 in the third year. In your second year, your stipend will be what Congress authorizes that year for level 3. In your third year, your stipend will be what Congress authorizes that year for level 4.

Your institution or your sponsor may choose to supplement your fellowship stipend, which is legal if the supplemental funds come from a non-Federal source and are provided without any additional obligation from the fellow.

Yes. In most cases, your business office will issue the IRS Form 1099 that you'll need when you file your tax return.

NIH awards an institutional allowance to help support the costs of training. The specific levels of allowance for predoctoral and postdoctoral support, including those for individuals training at Federal laboratories, for-profit organizations, or foreign organizations, are published in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. They also are available on the NIH Institutional Training Grants web site. See NIH Grants Policy Statement 11.2.9.4 for more details.

If you have other applications pending, you will have to withdraw those applications before you can accept an NRSA fellowship. Your program director will ask for copies of the letters that you write to withdraw your other fellowship applications. If you are anticipating a decision from another funding source soon, you may want to wait until you hear from that funding source before you accept or reject the offer from NIH. Your program director will tell you how long s/he can wait for you to decide.

Ask your program director when decisions are likely to be made about NRSA fellowships and the probability that your application will be funded. If you are likely to be offered a fellowship, your program director can calculate what your term and stipend would be.

Send a letter to your assigned NIGMS program director, countersigned by an authorized representative from your institution's Office of Sponsored Research, requesting your application be withdrawn. The letter can be scanned, uploaded, and sent as a PDF to the program director's e-mail address located in your eRA Commons account. See Withdraw Your Application | Grants & Funding for more details.

If s/he needs more details about the course that you're planning to take, ask your Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) to e-mail a revised course description to your program director following the five instructional components and other guidelines. See Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) | Grants & Funding for more details. For complete requirements, applicants should review official policies NOT-OD-10-019 and NOT-OD-22-055.

E-mail a notarized statement certifying that you are in possession of a green card (I-551) to your grants management specialist. You need to do this before your fellowship can be awarded. If your green card is being approved for renewal, you can submit a notarized statement certifying that you are in possession of Form 1-90, which was provided to you when you filed for your new green card. Once you have received your new green card, you must email a notarized statement certifying that you have your green card to your grants management specialist.

No, but you must submit proof that you completed the requirements for the PhD or another terminal degree before you can activate (start) your fellowship. You can submit the PhD certification form that was sent to you with your Notice of Research Fellowship Award (note that this form must be signed by the dean or registrar of the institution from which you earned your degree); a copy of your diploma, if it specifies the degree that was awarded; or an official copy of your graduate transcript. The document should be emailed to the grants management specialist.

Your grants management specialist will issue the award. It typically takes a few weeks--maybe up to a month--, after you tell your program director that you would like to accept the fellowship for that to happen. If you need to submit something before your award can be issued (e.g., proof of permanent residency, a revised RCR plan), do that right away. If you don't, your award will be delayed.

The Notice of Award (NoA) will be automatically e-mailed to your institution's Office of Sponsored Programs and available through their eRA Commons account. After receiving the Fellowship Award Notice, you may activate your fellowship by following the instructions for submitting the Activation Notice and Payback agreement, which are found in the Terms and Conditions section of the NRFA. These instructions include the links to the forms you'​ll need.

You can activate (start) your fellowship any time within 6 months of the date on which the Notice of Research Fellowship Award was issued, except between October 1 and November 15. Talk to your sponsor about the best time to activate your fellowship. Activating it quickly may be preferable if money is tight in the lab. Conversely, if you activate your fellowship late, you may be able to extend your time in your sponsor's lab. The term of your fellowship will be the same, regardless of when you activate it.

If you know when you're offered the fellowship that you want to activate it as soon as possible, tell your program director when you accept the offer so that s/he can let your grants management specialist know. Depending on how busy your grants management specialist is, s/he may be able to expedite the award.

To activate your fellowship, an Activation Notice (PHS 416-5) must be submitted before funding can be disbursed. Fellows who have received less than 12 months prior Kirschstein-NRSA postdoctoral support also must complete a Payback Agreement (PHS 6031) form. These forms are available at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/forms.htm. Completed Adobe PDF form(s) with digital signatures must be emailed from an Authorized Organization Representative to the Grants Management Specialist named in Section 9 (“Awarding Agency Contact Information”) of the Notice of Award.

If circumstances beyond your control prevent you from being able to activate your fellowship within 6 months, you can request an extension of the activation period. Your request should be in the form of a letter signed by you and countersigned by your sponsor and by the appropriate institutional official. In the letter, you should explain the circumstances justifying the request and specify the date to which you'd like the activation period to be extended. When choosing a date, keep in mind that you will not be able to activate your fellowship between October 1 and November 15. The letter should be emailed to your grants management specialist named in Section 9 ("Awarding Agency Contact Information") of the Notice of Award. If your request is approved, a revised Notice of Research Fellowship Award with a new "latest activation date" will be issued.

For every month of NRSA postdoctoral support, up to 12 months, you incur an obligation to pay back that support. You can fulfill that obligation by continuing the fellowship for 12 additional months or by doing biomedical research-related activities while you are not supported by the fellowship. One month of payback is required for every month in which you incur a payback application. See 11.3.13 Reporting Requirements and 11.4.3 Payback for more details.

In accordance with ongoing efforts to support family-friendly work environments for the NIH-supported workforce, NRSA fellowship awardees are now eligible to request additional funds for costs for childcare provided by a licensed provider. Requests may be made at the time of the competing application, as a "just in time" submission prior to receiving the award notice, in the annual progress report, or mid-budget period as an administrative supplement (see NOT-OD-24-116 and the associated notices). Eligible fellows are encouraged to consult the FAQs and the Grants Management Specialist on the Notice of Award.

Contact the business official/Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) at your institution who handles postdoctoral fellowships. If s/he can't help you, get in touch with your grants management specialist or your program director at NIGMS. In general, address questions about policy or legal issues to your grants management specialist and questions about your research project to your program director. Since grants management and program staff work closely with each other, they will confer, if necessary, to address your questions and resolve any problems that might arise.

Yes. At the end of every year of fellowship support except for the last one, you are required to submit a progress report. Your progress report is due 2 months before your next year of support is scheduled to begin. Your institution will submit the progress report, but it is your responsibility to write the narrative describing your progress. It is your sponsor's responsibility to provide a written evaluation of your accomplishments.

See Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) for an overview of expectations and resources to help you understand how to submit a progress report.

Call your program director and explain the situation. If it is just a few days late, there is no harm done, if your program director and your grants management specialist know when it will arrive. However, if we do not have your progress report when your current year of fellowship funding expires, your next year of funding will be delayed.

No. There is no carryover from one budget period to the next. All funds must be spent in the year in which they were awarded.

In general, the PD/PI may make changes in the methodology, approach, or other aspects of the project objectives. However, the recipient must obtain prior approval from the NIH awarding IC for a change in scope. A change in scope is a change in the direction, aims, objectives, purposes, or type of research training, identified in the approved project. The recipient must make the initial determination of the significance of a change and should consult with the GMO as necessary. See GPS 8.1.2.5 for more details.

If you change projects, sponsors, AND institution, you cannot keep your fellowship. But if you change projects OR sponsors OR institution, you can request permission from your program director to keep your fellowship. If you change two of the three parameters (e.g., project and sponsor), you will need approval to retain your fellowship from your program director and from the NIGMS TWD leadership. Your request will only be approved if the justification for the change(s) is very compelling.

A fellowship cannot be moved from one institution to another between October 1 and November 15.

Yes, but the process may take several weeks since your unexpended institutional allowance and stipend funds will have to be transferred from your old institution to your new institution.

Individuals requiring extended periods of time away from their research training experience, that is, more than 15 calendar days of sick leave or more than 60 calendar days of parental leave, must seek approval from the NIH awarding IC for an unpaid leave of absence. A request letter signed by the fellow and fellowship sponsor must be submitted by the AOR and must advise the NIH awarding IC of the dates of the leave of absence. Upon approval of the request, the NIH awarding IC will issue a revised NoA extending the ending date of the current budget/project period by the appropriate number of days or months of unpaid leave time. Recipients are precluded from spending award funds during the leave of absence, although continued coverage of health insurance would be allowable if in accordance with policy of the sponsoring institution. See GPS 11.2.13.1. Note that your fellowship cannot be re-started between October 1 and November 15.

If you take a leave of absence, your award will be extended to compensate for the time that you are on leave. For example, if you are on an unpaid leave of absence for 3 months, your award will be extended for 3 months.

You need to submit a termination notice to NIH (PHS 416-7 via xTrain within 30 days of termination). The instructions for submission can be found here. Fellows with service payback requirements must notify NIH of any change in address and submit Annual Payback Activities Certification Forms (PHS 6031-1 [PDF]) until the payback service obligation is satisfied.

Congratulations! If you terminate your fellowship in the first 6 months of a fellowship year, your institutional allowance will be reduced by half. Otherwise, there is no penalty for early termination, if you already fulfilled your payback obligation or will fulfill it by doing biomedical research-related activities in your new position. Please follow the instructions above to submit your termination notice to NIH via xTRAIN asap, but no later than 30 days of the termination.

We realize that most postdoctoral research projects take more than 3 years to complete. However, there is a Congressionally mandated 3-year limit on NRSA postdoctoral support. Generally, sponsors assume the responsibility of supporting postdocs after their fellowships expire. In most cases, requests for extensions of the fellowship will not be considered.

In unusual circumstances, however, a postdoc who has received less than 3 years of NRSA support will be considered for a 6-month extension of the fellowship if the postdoc has an unanticipated opportunity for substantial new training. You cannot request an extension to work on experiments that you proposed to do in your fellowship application and have not yet started, to finish ongoing projects, or to write manuscripts. If you think that you might qualify for an extension, contact your program director.

In very rare circumstances (e.g., an MD who needs more time to complete his/her PhD research, a postdoc who has not been able to work efficiently for a prolonged period because of a sponsor's illness, or a major disaster in the laboratory), a request for a 12-month extension will be considered. Approval from the NIGMS TWD leadership and your program director is required for a 12-month extension.

Additional FAQs can be found here.