Fellowships and Scientific Writing Resources

The OFSW runs multiple fellowship writing workshops that combine didactic lectures with peer review of participants’ proposals. Notification of the workshop dates are sent out via the Graduate Student email list.

• NSF GRFP Workshop: The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) funds early-stage graduate students, first or second year students, who have not completed a stand-alone Master’s degree. This multi-week workshop includes detailed instruction regarding rules and regulations, review criteria, and coordination of peer review. Dates: Workshop August – October. Submission deadline typically mid-October.
• NIH F31 Workshops: The National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award (NRSA) F31 predoctoral training fellowship is given to promising applicants with the potential to become productive, independent investigators. We offer the NRSA F31 workshop series three times a year to coincide with NIH fellowship cycle deadlines. The goal of these multi-week workshops is to provide students with information regarding application components, outline the NIH peer review system for evaluating fellowships and grants, and conduct peer review. Dates: Workshops September – November, January – March, and May – July. Submission deadline April 8, August 8, and December 8. 

Some fellowships are submitted to the sponsor from the university using a "system-2-system" platform; other fellowships are submitted to the sponsor by the applicant. Regardless of the method of submission, all fellowships with a budget must be reviewed by the university prior to submission.

The Office of Fellowships and Scientific Writing is responsible for routing all graduate student fellowship and grant applications to the Office of Sponsored Research Administration (OSRA) at Weill Cornell Medicine for review. Fellowship applications are routed to OSRA through Weill Research Gateway (WRG). OSRA has standard due dates associated with application routing in WRG.

• NIH submissions:
  • NIH submissions are due for pre-review at 12pm EST 7 business days prior to the sponsor deadline. Pre-review requires that all “non-science” documents must be finalized. All attachments except the Specific Aims page, Research Strategy, and associated Bibliography are due in their final form at pre-review.
  • NIH submissions are due for final review at 12pm EST 2 business days prior to the sponsor deadline. All grant documents must be finalized at this time.
• All other submissions:
  • All other submissions are due for final review at 3pm EST 2 business days prior to the sponsor deadline. All grant documents must be finalized at this time.

The Office of Fellowships and Scientific Writing (OFSW) works together with the Graduate School's post-award and financial team and Office of Sponsored Research Administration (OSRA) to help students with federal fellowships submit required progress reports. These include:

• NIH Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) for F31 and F99/K00 fellowships. RPPRs are due to the NIH 2 months before the start of the next project period. RPPRs are submitted to the NIH via eRA Commons, and must be routed to OSRA in eRA Commons for approval 7 business days prior to the NIH deadline for review.
• NSF GRFP Annual Activities Reports, described in the administrative guide. Annual Activities Reports are submitted via the NSF Fastlane portal. 

Emily Goetzler
Program: BCMB Allied Program
Mentor: Dr. Matthias Stadtfeld at WCM
Award Result: Honorable Mention

While WCGS guarantees funding for all students, we strongly encourage our students to apply for external funding. As an incentive, WCGS issues an additional “Fellowship Award” to each student who receives a fellowship, scholarship, or grant from an external funding agency’s competitive award program. To learn more, click here.

The Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences believes that presenting research as a first-author is an essential part of the graduate training experience. To support our graduate students, WCGS provides $1,200 per year to PhD students in the BCMB, IMP, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, and PBSB programs to travel to present their first author work, e.g., a poster or talk, at a conference or meeting. To learn more, click here.