Funding Resources

Resources to help postdoctoral scholars find and apply for funding

UCI Office of Research provides support and resources for faculty, staff and postdoctoral scholars, including:

Proposal Planning and Submission Process at UCI 

Grant Writing Tips and Guides
YouTube page:
    Use of single IRBs for multi-site grant applications
    NIH Compliance for Public Access
    ClinicalTrials.gov– What is it and why do researchers need to know?

Additional Resources:

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized. You are highly encouraged to create an ORCID.

National Center for Faculty Development (NCFDD) – offers a variety of resources on grant writing. Since UCI sponsors this service, you can join free via an institutional sub-account membership. Use your UCI e-mail address to enroll.

“On the Art of Writing Proposals”– Some Candid Suggestions for Applicants to Social Science Research Council Competitions

“How do I Review Thee? Let Me Count the Ways”: A Comparison of Research Grant Proposal Review Criteria Across US Federal Funding Agencies by Holly J. Falk-Krzensinski and Stacey C. Tobin.  This article includes charts to help correlate required sections/review criteria among grant applications and thus enable researchers to more easily adapt current grant applications to other application formats.

AAAS Career Center– Includes courses on proposal/grant writing (most courses are fee-based.

Listed below are links to funding databases and current postdoctoral scholar funding opportunities from federal agencies, private foundations, UC programs, and others. Additional opportunities are listed below in “recent announcements”.

STEM Funding

Humanities and Social Sciences Funding

UC Sponsored Postdoctoral Fellowships

Travel

For International Scholars

Also, consider industry, professional organization sponsors and your home country as possible resources.

NIH Website-Research Career Development Awards 

What are NIH K awards? 

K awards provide support for senior postdoctoral fellows or faculty-level candidates. K awards are designed to promote the career development of specific groups of individuals based on their past training and career stage.  The objective of K programs is to bring candidates to the point where they are able to conduct their research independently and are competitive for major grant support.  

What is a K99/R00 award?

Often called the “Pathway to Independence” award. It supports an initial mentored research experience (K99) followed by independent research (R00) for highly qualified, postdoctoral researchers, to secure an independent research position. Award recipients are expected to compete successfully for independent R01 support during the R00 phase.

NIH Reporter  Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool; provides access to reports, data, and analyses of NIH research activities, information on NIH expenditures and the results of NIH supported research.

NIH Matchmaker– recently enhanced to make it just as easy to identify NIH program officials whose portfolios include projects in your research area, as well as NIH-funded projects similar to your supplied abstracts, research bios, or other scientific text.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) provides several examples and templates for grant applications.  Unfortunately, there is no K99/R00 example. 

UCSF provides examples of K awards components and additional resources.

What is the BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00)?
This award is similar yet distinctive form the K99/R00 award described about.  A webinar describing the BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 with associated slides is posted here. 

NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA)– Description and application for F32

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) provides several examples and templates for grant applications.  Unfortunately, there is no F32 example. However, the F31 example and other documents could be useful.

Special NSF Programs for Postdoctoral Fellows

The Nature Masterclasses online certificate course in Scientific Writing and Publishing is an incredible resource for those involved with the publishing process.  The course, taught by expert editors from the Nature journals, includes 15 modules and covers the entire scientific publishing process from writing a paper to publication.

Learn or update your knowledge about how to get published in top journals:

* How to get the most out of the writing process

* How the manuscript selection process works

* What happens to your paper after submission

UCI Nature Masterclasses portal.

Complimentary access is available to UC Irvine students of all levels, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, staff and administrators.  The course focuses on the natural sciences, though it is relevant to most disciplines. This course is provided by the UCI School of Medicine and School of Biological Sciences.

The Office of Research created a video with step-by-step instructions for complying with the NIH’s mandatory Public Access policy. The policy requires that published journal articles resulting from NIH funded research be made publicly available on the agency’s PubMed Central digital archive. The video teaches you how to deposit manuscripts onto the archive and how to report compliance. Watch “NIH Public Access Mandate” on YouTube.