Students' Corner Articles
· Letter to Students - January 2007
· Choosing the Right PhD Program: MS to PhD Considerations
· Choosing a Doctoral Nursing Program: Considerations for an Online Program
· Funding Dissertation Research—Where to Begin?
· Funding Your Dissertation
· Thinking About a Doctorate in Nursing?
Students' Corner
Funding Your Dissertation Research
Cecelia I. Roscigno, MN, PhDc, RN, CNRN
School of Nursing
University of Washington
Funding your doctoral training and dissertation requires some forethought and resolve. The ease with which you are able to find funding, which you are personally eligible to receive, will depend on three primary factors: 1) the area of healthcare in which you are planning to focus your research, 2) the research reputation of both your mentor and the institution where you will complete your doctoral studies at, and 3) your individual U. S citizenship or residency status. The first potential resources that are discussed here are only available to students who are citizens or non-citizen nationals of the United States, or have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence. Next, private sources of scholarships, grants, or fellowships are discussed. These sources of funding might or might not be open to students who are not citizens, non-citizen nationals, or residents of the United States. However if you are persistent enough, you will find some form of funding that you are eligible to apply for. This guide will give you an overview of the various types of funding sources and how to get started.
Types of Resources Available to Searching for Funding
Check your University's library for information on available search toolkits, printed resources, and databases, which are specifically designed for funding searches. If you are attending a large research oriented University, they might even have a librarian whose time is dedicated to helping students and faculty in searching for funding sources. Your library might also have on-line tutorials or give classes that will educate you about the various funding resources available to you, as well as tips for search strategies. Conducting searches in other publicly available search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, or MSN) might also provide you with some links to potential funding sources from private foundations or professional organizations.
Printed Resources:
- The Europa international foundation directory. (2005).
New York: Routledge.
This resource is updated yearly and is great for any student who wants to conduct research that is international in its scope or will be conducted in another country. - Boorkman, J. A. (2004) Grant Sources. In Boorkman, J. A.,
Huber, J. T., & Roper, F. W. (Eds). Introduction to reference
sources in the health sciences. New York: Neal Schuman Publishers.
This chapter is easy to ready and covers directories that cover both federal and private funding sources. - Annual Register of Grant Support. New Providence,
Rhode Island: R.R. Bowker.
This is a good source for foundation funding. - McGrath Morris, J. & Adler, L. (2005). Grant seekers'
guide: foundations that support social and economic justice.
Wickford, Rhode Island: Moyer Bell.
This is a good source for foundations that fund social science research.
Funding Databases:
- Community of Science: http://fundingopps.cos.com
Access to this database must be purchased by an institution, so it is not available to everyone. This database lists worldwide and U.S. Federal sources of funding (including military), but is not good for locating private foundations. Has a personalized email alert service. - Grants.gov: http://www.grants.gov
This is available to anyone and lists funding opportunities from the 26 federal grant making agencies. You can even sign up for email notifications. - GrantsNet: http://www.grantsnet.org
This website is geared more to those in bench science. However, it is a great learning resource for "young" investigators. It covers topics of career development and lists funding opportunities especially for new investigators, some of which may be applicable to your research area.
Financial Aid
One source of funding for your doctoral studies in nursing is federal financial aid. This requires you to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) every year, which determines your eligibility for this need based source of financial support. Funding sources through FAFSA include scholarships, fellowships, work/study positions, and student loans, which come from a variety of sources including federal, state, private, and local institutional sources. You should contact your institution's financial aid office, as soon as you determine that you will be attending school, to obtain the application. Remember to be aware of the deadline dates! You also should make yourself aware of, and able to meet, any expectations (e.g. time commitment or accepting a particular job upon graduation), which might be tied to receiving these particular funds or you might be held responsible for paying back the amount of award.
National Institutes of Health Grants
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has several opportunities to help fund pre-doctoral studies in nursing research. NIH predoctoral and postdoctoral grants can be broken up into institutional training grants (usually have numbers that begin with a "T" ie. T32, T35, or T90) and individual training grants such as a National Research Service Award (NRSA) (usually have numbers that begin with "F" ie. F31).
Institutional Training Grants
Institutional training grants are a grant that has already been awarded to the institution. The primary investigator (PI) then distributes individual training grants to applicants, which typically cover partial or full tuition costs, a stipend, and a small amount towards travel/training expenses. The institution typically receives their grant for a 5 year period upon which they must reapply for a continuance. The institution is typically awarded this type of a grant because they have faculty with strong research programs and a history of mentoring successful students. Therefore, the source that provided the institutional training grant is confident that the institution is adequately prepared to train competent researchers for the future. The number of individual traineeships available and the amount provided for trainees will vary on each training grant. For a student to be funded by an institutional training grant they must be accepted into the doctoral program of study. The student then applies to the director of the training grant and is typically asked to share a statement of their research interests and plan of study, as well as their Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Be sure to check for possible training grants outside of your school of nursing, but within your University. It is possible there are training grants, which might support interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research training programs and you might be eligible. Although, the total of all predoctoral NIH funding is capped at 5 years for any student, most institutional training grants typically prefer to fund their trainees for 2 years of training. This is so that they can help the maximum number of students with funding for their doctoral studies. During trainee's initial 2 years of training, it is frequently expected that you will write and submit for a grant to NIH, such as a Ruth L. Kirshstein Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA) or that you will apply for some other private funding source to help support your dissertation phase. Exceptions to this rule might exist at each institution, but you should become aware of the expectations for trainees as soon as you begin your training.
Individual Training Grants
Individual training grants can be written and submitted at any time after the student has begun their doctoral program. Although they are all under the heading of a NRSA, there are a few different types of NRSA grants and some give priority to students that meet the general eligibility criteria. At times NIH identifies specific priorities in who it trains, to round out the cadre of scholars that it supports. NIH will then call for applications to fund individual researchers who fit the criteria identified. Two current examples of these types of NRSA grants are the Individual Predoctoral Fellowship Awards for Minority Students and Fellowship Awards for Students with Disabilities. Respectively, these fellowships are intended to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of researchers in the biomedical, behavioral, and health services and to encourage students with disabilities to pursue a career in graduate research. Students who meet the eligibility criteria and are enrolled in a doctoral nursing program are encouraged to apply for this funding as soon as they are accepted into the doctoral program. They still have to identify a mentor, lay out their program of study, and submit a research proposal, but their training is given funding priority. If awarded, they will receive up to 5 years of funding for their research training.
The other form of an individual NRSA is the Ruth L. Kirshstein proposal. As soon as a doctoral student is committed to a particular area of study and has identified a sponsor that is willing to support their training and proposed dissertation, they are eligible to submit their NRSA application to one of the various institutes at NIH. It will be important for you to show how your proposed program of study will prepare you to conduct your research, how your sponsor will be able to guide you, and finally that you have a cogent and plausible research study planned. If awarded, you are eligible to receive up to 5 years of NRSA funding.
Many students are not committed to a particular area of study when they first enter their doctoral program. Therefore, some students wait until they have completed relevant coursework, have determined their area of study, and have identified an appropriate sponsor for their dissertation study. At that point, you might submit a Ruth L. Kirshstein proposal packet. It is important to understand that the further along you are in your training, the higher the standard will be: 1) that you are able to write a clear grant proposal, and 2) your application packet demonstrates you are prepared to conduct this proposed investigation.
Important Considerations of a NRSA Application
One of the first things you might want to do once you have a good idea of what you want to do for your research is to go to the NIH database that lists all funded investigations. This database is called CRISP (http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/) and it lists grants funded by NIH, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA), Health Resources and Services Administration (AHRQ), and the Office of Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH). It will give you an idea of which agency has funded what type of studies in your area and will help you to identify whether someone is already conducting a study in your proposed area. If no one is already conducting a study like yours, it might help you to form an argument as to why your study is needed!
Once you have identified the institute at NIH that you think is
the best fit for you to submit your research proposal, you should
then query the program officer of that institute. To learn about the
various institutes, their general mission, and the name and email
of the program director visit:
In all NRSA applications, the applicant must identify an individual
who will serve as their sponsor and will supervise their research
training. The student should carefully seek a sponsor who is an
active investigator in either the content area or methodological area
they propose to do their research and willing to support them in
putting together a NRSA application, as well as supervise their
research progression over their years of funded study. Some
underestimate the role of the mentor in helping to prepare a strong
application packet and this can cost them their funding! If the
mentor's portion of the packet is weak, it might be assumed that
their support to the student will also be weak. Previous supervisory
experience with a student funded by an NRSA is very helpful, but not
necessary. The applicant will want to work very closely with their
sponsor in preparing their NRSA application. The sponsor will need
to document their research background, previous students that they
sponsored, and their availability and resources to support the student.
The application will also ask about the institutional and school
facilities that are available to the student to help them with their
research training and provide them with support. This section is
equally weighted, so give the same amount of attention to detail to
the entire application as you do the proposal. If possible, look at
a NRSA proposal that was recently funded by the same institute within
NIH that you will be applying to (e.g. National Institutes of Nursing
Research (NINR)). Ask some other researchers and clinicians to
critique your proposal. Don't limit the persons that you choose to
critique your study to persons that have clinical or methodological
expertise in your research area. Sometimes an outsider's view can
be very helpful! Remember, reviewers might or might not have
expertise in your area. You want your proposal to be appealing to
all readers! Visit
Important Considerations of NIH Funding
An important consideration when pursuing any NIH award is that awardees are expected and required to pursue their research training on a full-time basis, devoting at least 40 hours per week. Thus, working outside of this program is typically limited to 25% of full-time status (10 hours). Another important consideration is that the process takes quite a bit of time from the date you send in your proposal till the time you receive your funding award (provided you are awarded funding). Sometimes as long as 9 - 12 months! If you wait till you are ready to do your dissertation you are waiting too long! If you don't receive a fundable score your first time, students are invited to resubmit their grant proposal up to two times. This is highly recommended. Not only will you learn from the reviewers comments, but you will likely increase your chances of getting a fundable score.
Private Grants, Fellowships, and Scholarships
Many professional organizations at the local, state, national, or international level offer grants, fellowships, or scholarships to persons that meet their eligibility criteria. Private sources of scholarships, grants, or fellowships that are located here in the United States might or might not be open to students who are not citizens or non-citizen nationals of the United States or have not been admitted to the United States for permanent residence. You must check each source. However, you also have the option of checking for these sources of funding from organizations located in the country, in which you have permanent residence. Some will be restricted to pre-doctoral study that is conducted in that country and not elsewhere, but some forego this restriction. If it is a professional organization, it is likely that membership is required. However, there are a small number of grants that do not require active membership. Begin by checking the professional organizations that you are currently involved in. Other options include private foundations concerned with promoting research and leadership in a particular area of social sciences or health care. Talk to other students who are ahead of you, as well as faculty in your area of research. They might be aware of professional organizations or private foundations who would want to support your research and leadership skills. In addition, take note of the author's acknowledgements to funding sources when your reading published articles in your area of research. Be aware that often a private foundation will make the statement that they "do not fund individuals" and this deters many students from pursuing them further. However, you are not conducting research as an individual and are actually a part of your University. A final source is the Foundation Center's database, which may be available to you through your institution's library services. If not, it is also available to anyone for a fee. Grant writing to a foundation can be slightly different than writing a federal grant. Therefore, a good resource for writing grants to foundations is: Margolin, J. B. (2005). The Foundation Center's guide to winning proposals II. New York: Foundation Center.
Internal School Funds
Do not forget to check your own school's support of dissertation work! Many institutions keep some internal funds available to assist with the development of their doctoral student's research. Although, these grants might be small, they might be enough to get you started, while you are awaiting any other sources of funding to come through. Make sure you learn about any potential internal funding sources early on!
Conclusion
There are several different resources for you to fund your training and research. Begin to learn how to search for the various types of sources early in your training. Be persistent in your attempts to get funded. If you do not get awarded funding from one source, then keep on trying and do not take it personally! You will likely learn how to improve your proposal writing skills for a future submission somewhere else. You might even want to resubmit your proposal to that same source, when their next application deadline rolls around. Now you have their feedback, which will help you to enhance your proposal the second time around. Most funding sources available to doctoral students do not provide large amounts of money. Depending on the amount of money your budget requires, it is possible that you might have to fund your dissertation with several smaller grants. The more grant writing that you participate in; the more improved your grant writing skills will become. Remember, there are lots of funding sources out there and one is just right for you!
The author would like to acknowledge the following source, which
provided resources for this article:
McTaggart, B. (2006). From A to $$: getting started with grants. Available
only to U.W. students at
http://healthlinks.washington.edu/rfs/talks/finding.html.
The author would like to acknowledge the following funding support:
NINR Individual Ruth L. Kirshstein National Research Service Award (1 F31 NR009599-01).