Grants for Graduate Students

As a PhD student in the life sciences, you are likely funded through your advisor's grants or a program training grant.  It's never too early to start looking for your own funding, even though there are many more postdoctoral fellowships available than predoctoral fellowships.  While there are not as many grants available for graduate students as there are for postdocs or PIs, you might be surprised by the number of organziations willing to help train the next generation of scientists.  The earlier in your career that you get experience writing real grants (that are successfully funded) the easier it will be to get funded in the future.  If you are a graduate student getting ready to defend soon, start looking for postdoctoral funding opportunities now. Wherever you are in your graduate career, apply for travel awards to attend scientific conferences (find information on the conference website).  Be sure to check with your advisor/program head/university before planning your application -- there are often many steps you must take within your university or college before applying for outside funding.   Here are two of my favorite sites for finding grants.

1. Most students have heard of grants.gov. This is the site for finding government grants.  The government often funds program training grants for graduate students and postdocs but you can get an individual graduate fellowship from the government, such as the NRSA,  too (see their training portal for more details).  This is a great site to get a comprehensive view of all the government funding oppportunities available.
   
   
2. My absolute favorite site for funding searches is Community of Science (www.cos.com).  This site lists thousands of grant opportunities from every type of organization imaginable -- government, private, non-profit, etc.  You can also set up funding alerts so that you get emails anytime a new funding possibility that matches your research interests becomes available. The funding wizard works really well for helping to set up your alerts and for finding funding opportunities in your field.  The type of grants available runs the gamut on this site -- from training grants to dissertation writing grants.  Although free individual memberships are available, your university might even pay for the subscription version to this site, which will offer you a handy CV builder and expertise search in addition to being able to search for funding opportunities.

Don't forget about looking specifically at organizations related to your line of research for training grants.  The American Heart Foundation and the Ford Foundation offer training grants for graduate students.  So, think about any organizations or foundations associated with your line of research and check out their websites.


All recommendations are independent and based on my personal experience. I have received no compensation for these recommendations.