Proposals submitted to RAS for individual fellowships or for fellowship programs should describe how the fellow will pursue their own research, in keeping with MIT’s definition and practices for fellowships.
What is a Fellowship?
Fellowships are individual awards that support the scholarly progress and professional development of a fellow. Fellowship funding attaches to the individual fellow rather than to a specific project, grant, or research group. The primary objective is to support mentored scholarship and the fellow’s own research and scholarly development, rather than specific research deliverables or services rendered to MIT.
Individual Fellowship Proposals
For an individual fellow, the proposal generally identifies a faculty sponsor or mentor and provides a description of the fellow’s own research plan. A mentoring plan is usually included. RAS provides more information on MIT-administered externally sponsored fellowships.
MIT Fellowship Program Proposals
When proposing a new MIT fellowship program:
- The proposal should describe a program for supporting education and training in a general area of study, rather than describing a single research project or a set of specific research deliverables
- The proposal should also describe:
- Selection process and criteria
- Training environment and mentoring plan
- How fellows will propose/develop and direct their own research activities
- The distinction between fellows’ mentored scholarly work and any sponsored research conducted by a PI mentor and their lab or research group
It should be clear that fellows maintain the final decision(s) regarding the direction of their own research and their funding is not conditioned on achieving specific outcomes for MIT.
Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs
See Postdoctoral Services for guidelines on proposing new programs for postdoctoral scholars (Touchstone required).