Fellowship and Scientific Writing Resources

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). 

To ensure that application review is done correctly, OSRA has standard due dates associated with application routing in WRG.

NIH submissions

NIH submissions are due for pre-review at 3pm 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 3pm 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 OFSW has sourced materials from the NIH, professional grant writing consultants, and the literature to create 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 NSF GRFP funds early-stage graduate students who have not completed a Master’s degree. This 6-week long workshop includes detailed instruction regarding rules and regulations, review criteria, and peer review of students’ drafts. Dates: September-October

• NIH F31 Workshops: The F31 National Research Service Award (NRSA) predoctoral training fellowship is given to promising applicants with the potential to become productive, independent investigators. We offer the F31 workshop series three times a year and the dates coincide with NIH fellowship cycle deadlines. The goal of these 8-week long workshops is to provide students with information regarding application components as well as the NIH peer review system for evaluating fellowships and grants. Dates: October-November, February-March, and June-July

We encourage students to reach out to our office to set up appointments for individualized advice on all topics related to fellowships. We can assist at all stages of proposal development; including helping you choose the fellowship that is right for you, brainstorming research topics/hypothesis development, and structuring an effective proposal.  With advanced notice, we also offer professional editing of finalized drafts.

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.