What makes a good fellowship application?
This page gives helpful guidance on what our fellowship panels will be looking for when assessing applications at different levels of research experience.
Information on the assessment process, including formal criteria, is available on the assessment criteria page.
- Applicants for senior fellowships:
- Intermediate schemes include Career Development Awards and Clinician Scientist Fellowships
- Applicants for junior schemes
Applicants for senior fellowships:
In assessing your application the MRC will be looking for evidence of the following:
- That you have demonstrated your scientific independence and your ability to lead a research team.
- That you have the potential to become a leader in your field. Your application should indicate your medium and long-term career goals.
- That the centre you are proposing to host your work is the best place for your research.
- What the centre will provide to help you succeed in your goals.
If you intend to stay in the same centre, you should justify your decision.
Your project should be of high scientific merit: it should be original, address important questions, use appropriate methodology and be feasible. You should give a clear time-frame for your proposed experiments and explain alternative strategies if you are proposing high risk projects. Multidisciplinary proposals are welcomed but you must be able to show how the different components gel together. There should be a clear central hypothesis or theme. Your project should be achievable with the resources and in the time-frame requested. You should provide sufficient justification for the resources requested based on the needs of the proposed science.
Intermediate schemes include Career Development Awards and Clinician Scientist Fellowships
This information covers Career Development Awards and Clinician Scientist Fellowships.
When assessing your application the MRC will be looking for evidence that:
- You have demonstrated potential as a high calibre researcher.
- You are committed to a research career. The interview panel will be interested in your long-term career aspirations. Hospital doctors should explain how they plan to combine their research and clinical training.
- Your proposed project and the training environment will provide you with valuable experience. There should be a clear training element in your application aimed at helping you to become a fully independent researcher. A continuation of existing work that would fail to add new skills is unlikely to be successful.
Applicants are also expected to demonstrate a breadth of research experience in centres other than the one they currently work in. You are therefore advised to seek out a centre which not only offers good career development and research training opportunities, but is also the most appropriate for the research you wish to undertake. If you have compelling reasons for remaining at a centre where you have already spent a year or more, you should explain this in your application. It is important that you explain what additional training you would gain if you continue at your present institution.
You also need to explain how an MRC fellowship would help your personal as well as scientific development; for example, your writing and time- and project-management skills. The MRC expects you to manage your own research - you should be able to demonstrate that this will be possible in your proposed host environment.
Your project should be of high scientific merit. You should give a clear timeframe for your proposed experiments and explain alternative strategies if you are proposing high-risk work. The project should be achievable with the resources and in the timeframe requested. You should provide sufficient justification for the resources requested based on the needs of the proposed science. Your requested resources should be appropriate to your level of post-doctoral experience.
If you have decided to take up the option to undertake a period of research training overseas, in industry or a second UK research centre, you should explain how this would broaden your research experience and training and benefit your long-term career development. You will be expected to discuss at interview how you intend to transfer newly acquired skills back to the UK research base.
Applicants for junior schemes
The junior schemes include: Clinical Research Training Fellowships, Population Health Scientist Fellowships, and Special Training Fellowships in Biomedical Informatics.
Please ensure that you, your proposed supervisor(s) and head of department read this section before completing the application form. In assessing your applications the MRC will be looking at:
- The applicant
- The project
- The research centre
- The training programme and plans for supervision
The applicant
You should be able to demonstrate good general knowledge of your proposed field. List any recent publications and outline your potential as a doctoral student or post-doctoral researcher.
You should be clear about your longer-term career aspirations and what sort of opportunities for your career development this fellowship would provide. If you are a medical graduate, you should explain how you plan to combine your research and clinical training, and to contribute to health services research.
You should mention any prizes or distinctions you have won (section 2 of the application form).
The project
The research project should be novel, interesting and relevant to health services and the health of the public, and should give you further training such as experience of new methodologies or techniques.
The project should be of high scientific merit and have clear aims and objectives. It would help if you could show that you have played a substantial role in developing your own project, for example visiting the proposed host laboratory, researching and writing the project in discussion with your proposed supervisor. If you have any research experience – for example, an intercalated degree, research-related vacation work, etc. – refer to this in your proposal, along with any preliminary data that suggest that your project will be successful.
Your project should provide you with valid training in the chosen research area and be intellectually challenging. You should give a clear time frame for your proposed experiments and explain alternative strategies if you are proposing high-risk work. Your project should be achievable with the resources and in the time frame available.
The centre
You should be able to demonstrate that the location for the project offers a suitable training environment, including expertise and facilities. You should consider and justify whether your host laboratory will provide you with an appropriate research training environment and whether it will give you the opportunity to develop new skills, generate new interactions, etc. You should explain whether the techniques that you will need to use are available in the host laboratory, and, if not, how you will obtain them and who will train you in their use.
If you are involved in research already, you are encouraged to broaden your research experience by moving to a centre other than the one you currently work in. It is important that you explain what additional training you will gain if you continue at your present institution.
If your proposal involves a clinical trial, this should be linked to an existing peer- reviewed trial or trials centre, funded either by the MRC or some other funding body. Further information on current studies supported by the MRC can be found on the current controlled trials register at www.controlled-trials.com.
The training programme and plans for supervision
Your application should clearly identify the quality of the research-training environment and the training content of the proposed research project. MRC Special Research Training Fellows should be provided with opportunities to acquire generic and subject-specific research skills, as well as transferable skills, during their fellowships.
In the application, you and your supervisor should outline the structure of the training programme that has been agreed. You should give details of the research training skills that will be provided, in terms of subject specific, transferable and generic skills. This information should include both formal and informal training. In addition to specialist subject-specific techniques, the MRC considers training in generic research skills – such as data handling, experimental design, statistics, intellectual property rights, health and safety and research ethics – to be a valuable component of research training. You should also consider the opportunities for development of transferable skills such as oral and written communication, IT skills and time- and resource-management.
Your application should describe the plans for managing and monitoring your progress as a fellow, such as regular planning, appraisal and progress meetings between you and your supervisor. There should also be some independent assessment of progress, such as through a postgraduate training advisor or advisory committee, or mentoring schemes for PhD candidates.
The MRC will look at the likely level and quality of supervision that you would receive, and will be particularly interested in how much access you will have to your supervisor. The supervisor is asked in Part B of the application form about their commitments with regard to other students and postdoctoral workers.
Where joint supervision is proposed, the role of each supervisor should be detailed in the application. The panel will also be interested in day-to-day supervisory arrangements and laboratory coaching.
If you have decided to take up the option to undertake a period of research training overseas, or at a second UK research centre, you should explain how this would broaden your research experience and training and benefit your long-term career development. You will be expected to discuss at interview how you intend to transfer newly-acquired skills back into the UK research base.