NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship Guide

What Is the NIH F31?

The Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship, known as the F31, provides support for promising doctoral candidates who are performing dissertation research in biomedical, behavioral, or clinical fields. The award provides a stipend, tuition and fee allowance, and a small institutional allowance for up to five years.

For graduate students, the F31 is more than financial support. It is a career credential that demonstrates your ability to write a competitive federal grant application — a skill that will serve you throughout your career. Study sections for F31 applications focus heavily on the applicant's potential as a future scientist.

Eligibility

You must be a U.S. citizen, non-citizen national, or permanent resident enrolled in a doctoral program at a domestic institution. You should be past your qualifying exams or at a stage where you have a defined dissertation project. Some institutes offer an F31 Diversity supplement specifically for candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, which uses a separate funding announcement.

Application Components

Specific Aims (1 page)

Follow the same general structure as an R01 Specific Aims page but adapted for a dissertation project. Establish the significance of the problem, state your hypothesis, and outline two to three aims. Since this is a training award, briefly indicate how pursuing these aims will develop your skills as an independent scientist.

Research Strategy (6 pages)

The Research Strategy is shorter than an R01 but requires the same rigor. Address Significance, Innovation, and Approach. For each aim, describe the rationale, methods, expected results, potential problems, and alternative strategies.

Given the page limit, be strategic about depth. Focus on demonstrating that you understand the methods, can anticipate challenges, and have thought through contingencies. Include preliminary data if you have it — even early-stage results show initiative and feasibility.

Applicant Background and Goals for Fellowship Training

This section is unique to fellowship applications and is critically important. Describe your educational background, research experience, and career goals. Explain how the proposed fellowship training will prepare you for your intended career. Identify specific skills you need to develop and how the training plan addresses those gaps.

Be specific about your contributions to prior research. Reviewers want evidence that you have been an active, engaged participant in your research experiences — not just a pair of hands.

Sponsorship and Training Plan

Your sponsor (dissertation advisor) must provide a detailed training plan that describes the mentoring approach, the training environment, the plan for developing your scientific and professional skills, and their track record of mentoring graduate students.

The training plan should go beyond the dissertation research to include professional development activities: grant writing workshops, scientific presentations, manuscript preparation, teaching experience, and networking opportunities. A compelling training plan shows that your sponsor is invested in your development as a complete scientist.

Sponsor and Co-Sponsor Statements

Your sponsor writes a statement describing their qualifications to mentor you, their current and pending support, their active research projects, and their specific plans for your mentoring. If you have a co-sponsor, they provide a similar statement addressing their complementary expertise.

Reviewers evaluate sponsors carefully. A strong sponsor has active funding, a robust publication record, and — importantly — a track record of successfully training students who have gone on to productive careers.

Review Criteria

F31 applications are reviewed on five criteria: Fellowship Applicant, Sponsors and Collaborators, Research Training Plan, Training Potential, and Institutional Environment. The scoring explicitly prioritizes your potential as a future scientist and the quality of the training you will receive.

What Sets Top Scores Apart

The highest-scoring F31 applications demonstrate that the applicant is already thinking like an independent scientist. The research plan shows original thinking, not just execution of a mentor's ideas. The training plan addresses genuine developmental needs. And the application tells a coherent story about a trajectory from student to independent investigator.

Writing Tips

Write in your own voice. While your sponsor will provide guidance, the application should clearly reflect your thinking. Reviewers can tell when a mentor has ghost-written the research plan, and it undermines the assessment of your potential.

Show intellectual independence. Describe your specific intellectual contributions to the project design. If you developed the hypothesis, refined the methodology, or identified a novel approach, make that clear.

Connect training to career goals. Every training activity should link to a specific career goal. If you plan to run a translational research lab, explain how the clinical exposure in your training plan prepares you for that. If you want an academic career, describe how teaching and mentoring experiences fit in.

Address the training environment. Describe the resources available at your institution: core facilities, relevant courses, seminar series, collaborative networks, and other training programs. Reviewers assess whether the environment provides adequate support for your development.

Common Pitfalls

• Describing a research plan without explaining how it develops your skills
• Providing a training plan that reads as generic rather than tailored to your needs
• Failing to articulate clear, specific career goals
• Underinvesting in the Applicant Background section, which is where reviewers assess your potential
• Sponsor statements that are perfunctory rather than detailed and personalized

The F31 is an investment in your future. A well-crafted application not only secures funding for your dissertation but also establishes the skills and habits of successful grant writing that will define your research career.