NIH F31 Part 1: Overview of the Application and Submission Process

So you’re looking to submit a F31 fellowship to fund your doctoral research. Congrats! Just committing to submitting a pre-doctoral fellowship is a huge step and will be a great learning experience.

I recently submitted a F31 and received a score that means my grant will get funded (more on this and the timeline for funding later). In this post, I’m going to provide an overview of the process and some of the University specific steps you should be on the lookout for. For tips and tricks to the actual application, check out Part 2.

First things first, what is a F31 and when is it due?

The F31 is an NIH pre-doctoral fellowship that provides up to 5 years of funding for dissertation research (typically 2-3 years) for US citizens. As of June 2021, the funding announcement can be found here: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-21-051.html. This announcement contains super important information about what’s included in the application, award information, review criteria, etc. Get familiar with it!!! There are 3 cycles throughout the year for both new applications and resubmissions. The due dates are April 8, August 8, or December 8.

Do I just work with my advisor or should I involve other faculty/collaborators?

You will definitely want to involve others and get your team set up early! Possible roles include:

Sponsor/Co-Sponsor: While your mentor is typically your sponsor, you can include a co-sponsor on the project. This person does not have to formally be a second mentor, but may fill a gap in your primary advisor's knowledge that will be necessary for your success in this project.

Collaborator/Consultants: Collaborators (unpaid) and consultants (paid) may provide advice or mentorship for a specific part of your project. These can be other faculty or working professionals. For my project, I included a faculty member who has a deep understanding of the theory and a statistician.

Recommenders: You will need 3-5 letters of recommendation for the application. These cannot be written by sponsors, collaborators, or consultants so keep this in mind when choosing your team.

Ok I’ve got my mentoring team and recommenders. Now onto the application materials: What do I need? What’s in them? Who writes them?

There are a million (not quite, but it’s going to feel like it!) documents for this application. The fellowship instructions (SF424 Application Packages) will detail the entire process, page limits, what to include in each document, and special instructions for fellowships. It’s 140 pages, but you should read all of them. Probably more than once.

While I won’t go over every document here, you should discuss who will be responsible for which documents with your mentoring team. Most of them will be you (with drafts reviewed by your team), but things like Sponsor/Co-Sponsor statements may be written by them. If so, set a firm date of when you want drafts by.

Also, if your work is considered a Clinical trial, you will have to perform the collections under an approved Clinical Trial on which your sponsor/co-sponsor is the PI. You cannot propose your own clinical trial. You will also have to complete the supplemental clinical trial documents.

Once I’ve written the materials, how do I submit my application?

This is where those “University Specific Steps” come into play. While I only know the steps for my own institution, I’ve heard from others that it is generally complicated and convoluted everywhere.

Long story short, you likely won’t be able to press submit on your grant yourself (which unfortunately makes it super anticlimactic). Most universities have an “Office of Research” or something similar that has to review your application and will then submit once they have confirmed you’ve followed all the guidelines.

Once you’ve decided to submit a grant and which cycle you’re applying for, you’ll want to talk with your PI about your university’s process and who to contact; my department has a certain staff member that works with us on our grants, but other universities may assign someone new each time. Either way, reach out to this person/group early to let them know you’re planning to submit an application! Hopefully they can meet directly with you so you can ask a lot of questions. This will trigger some (if not all) of the following steps:

1. Creation of your eRAcommons account- I actually had to request this from a different department, not the Office of Research – SO CONFUSING. You will also need to be given PI status which may require a second, different form.

2. Internal University Requirements- I had to submit a proposal summary form and two different budget spreadsheets.

3. Creation of the application in ASSIST – my contact at the Office of Research created the application and downloaded the materials for me. She then gave me access to “edit” the application.

4. Getting a copy of the most recent official instructions – NIH can change things at any time so only trust the version downloaded from ASSIST.

5. Notification of the actual submission date- The Office of Research required all documents to be submitted 3 business days before the actual NIH deadline. Don’t get surprised with these types of requirements at the last minute!

6. At this point, I was allowed to upload documents to ASSIST and told the office when I was done with the application so they could check it. Your university might be different so definitely confirm the process.

Wow that’s a lot of work! When should I start working on this?

There is a lot of work that goes into this application, so I recommend starting at least 3 months in advance of the deadline (some people recommend 6 months). This will vary depending on if this is your primary focus or if you are balancing classes and other research commitments at the same time.

When should I expect to hear back from NIH?

After submission, your application will be assigned to a study section; the study section will happen almost 3 months after the submission deadline. Within a few days of the study section, if your proposal was discussed, your score and percentile will be posted on eRAcommons and within a month your summary statement and feedback will be posted. After receiving a score, if you are near the funding cutoff, you can reach out to your program officer (NIH employee assigned to your application) about the likelihood of funding. Even after you get the “Yes, this will likely be funded!”, you will still have to wait for your funding to hit. I submitted in December and received my summary statement in March and still have not received the funding. Below is a handy timeline with approximate time frames for each step in the process.

Regardless of the outcome, you are going to learn so much through the submission of this application and will become a better researcher as a result. Good luck and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

About the Author:

Ashley is a PhD Candidate at Boston University in Rehabilitation Sciences. She recently received an F31 fellowship to fund her doctoral dissertation work. Her research is focused on understanding the effect of walking with a soft robotic exosuit on neuromuscular control in individuals after stroke. When not in the lab, Ashley enjoys hiking, playing soccer, reading mystery novels, and advising the BU chapter of her sorority, Alpha Delta Pi.