Grant Opportunities

External Funding Opportunities

Students have access to a myriad of external funding opportunities to help support their graduate education and research at Georgetown. Below is a list of some of the funding sources available. The external funding opportunities are organized based on their application deadline.

Additional External Funding Opportunities

There are many opportunities to learn how to write a grant. In the Skills & Ethics course (NSCI532), grant writing is emphasized as an exercise. In addition to writing a grant, in this course, you will also become a grant reviewer. An excellent way to learn about problems in grant writing. Furthermore, for the comprehensive exam to advance to candidacy in the PhD program, a grant is written and defended. It is expected of all eligible PhD students that they will write, and submit, a fellowship proposal.

Once a thesis laboratory is identified, the student and mentor should work together to begin writing a predoctoral fellowship. The Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) is a fellowship program run by NIH. The overall goal of the NRSA program is to help ensure that a diverse pool of highly trained scientists is available in appropriate scientific disciplines to address the Nation’s biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs. The purpose of the predoctoral fellowship (F31) award is to provide support for promising doctoral candidates who will be performing dissertation research and training in scientific health-related fields relevant to the missions of the participating NIH Institutes during the tenure of the award. The NRSA for Individual Predoctoral Fellows will provide up to three years of support for research training which leads to the PhD research degree. Deadlines are in April, August, and December. Only NIH institutes that are neuroscience oriented offer the NRSA program. This includes NIMH, NIDA, NIA, NEI, NINDS, NIAAA, and perhaps others. Fellowship applicants must be U.S. citizens or Permanent Residents.

The PhRMA Foundation has a Predoctoral Fellowship Program. The deadline is September 1. The student must have completed 2 years of study prior to applying. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or Permanent Residents. Importantly, only one candidate per university may apply. The Program will decide who the most competitive applicant will be.

The TBS Program is a training program at Georgetown and Howard Universities. It promotes students into careers in translational science and funds several pre and post-doctoral fellows each year.

The Medical Center Graduate Student Organization (MCGSO) has funds for graduate student travel to meetings. To receive funding, the student must be presenting a research poster or talk. More information is on the MCGSO website.

The Student Research Grants Program (SRGP) program was initiated to give graduate students an opportunity to conduct small, independent research projects and to give graduate students an opportunity to write and review grants. Projects funded by this mechanism must be separate from any active ongoing research in your mentor’s lab. Awards are typically between $2000 and $5000. More information is at the MCGSO website. Applications are accepted in late spring – check the website for details.

The mission of the ASPET Washington Fellows Program is to enable developing and early-career scientists interested in science policy to learn about and become more engaged in public policy issues. Fellows will develop an understanding of how public policy decisions made in Washington help shape and impact science policy, such as funding for the National Institutes of Health and other science agencies. Fellows will also learn how to advocate effectively on Capitol Hill and in their home districts. This program will help fellows develop the skills and insights to become future leaders in science. ASPET website Open to advanced graduate students and postdocs.