The Graduate School has established an incentive plan designed to encourage more students to apply for individual fellowships. Since May of 2007 when this incentive plan was announced, 108 Ph.D. students have submitted new individual fellowship applications. To date, 29 fellowships have been funded, representing a 264% increase in the number of individual fellowships that were held by predoctoral students when the program was initiated.
Dean Bryan Noe stated, "An investment of $27,000 of Graduate School funds has generated in excess of $603,000 per year in stipend support for UAB students who were awarded individual fellowships." This is a cost-benefit ratio which is quite favorable.
If you are a graduate student interested in the Incentive Plan, please read the eligibility requirements located below.
Graduate School Incentive Program to Promote Individual Fellowship Applications
Rationale and Goal: Relative to similar institutions which have vigorous research programs and generous external funding, UAB has a very small number of graduate students who have applied for and secured an individual fellowship to support their predoctoral education. We believe that many of our graduate students would be competitive for individual awards. Accordingly, the Graduate School is establishing an incentive plan designed to encourage more students to apply for individual fellowships. The Graduate School anticipates that implementing this incentive plan will be effective in garnering a significant number of individual fellowships in various programs at UAB.
Plan Description:
- The Graduate School will provide a monetary incentive for students to APPLY FOR individual fellowships funded by extramural agencies or foundations. Graduate students who apply for an individual fellowship (e.g. NSF Individual, NIH NRSA, or other) will be awarded $250 from the Graduate School through the UAB Financial Aid office as a reward for submitting the application. To qualify for this award, the application must be reviewed prior to submission by the student’s program director or mentor, who must provide a written verification to the Graduate School that the application is considered to be competitive. After submission of the grant application, the student will provide a PDF of the application to the Graduate School and the incentive reward will be authorized when the student provides evidence that the application has been received by the granting agency. The $250 award is given for first submissions only.
- If a student’s application is funded, the student will receive an additional financial reward.
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- For an NIH NRSA or other grant that provides less than the base stipend currently being offered to all students in that student’s program, the student will receive supplementation of the fellowship stipend to an amount equal to the base stipend plus $2,000 per year for the term that the grant is funded. If the student is being supported on funds provided by his/her advisor, the advisor will be responsible for only that portion of the student’s stipend that exceeds the amount being provided by the individual fellowship. If the source of the individual fellowship is from NIH, the supplementary funds must be derived from a non-NIH source. If the advisor does not have access to funds from a source other than NIH, he/she should consult with the Graduate School Dean’s office to develop an approach that assures that the student is appropriately rewarded. If the stipend amount of the external award is equal to or greater than the equivalent of $2,000 more than the current base stipend in the student’s program, the student is entitled to receive the full amount of the stipend.
If a student receives an NSF predoctoral fellowship, he/she will receive no supplement to his/her stipend during the three year term of the NSF fellowship. This stipulation is necessary because the NSF stipend of $30,000 exceeds the current maximum stipend allowed by the Graduate School. After the NSF grant terminates, the student’s advisor will be responsible for providing the current base stipend in that student’s program plus a $2,000 supplement until the student completes his/her degree requirements.
Eligibility: This plan is available to Masters and predoctoral students in any graduate program discipline in which extramural individual fellowship funding is available. To be eligible for both the reward for submitting the application and the supplement to a student’s stipend, the award must provide more than half the current base stipend in the student’s program. Applications for and receipt of travel and other small grants will not be eligible for an incentive award under this program.
Some additional details for your students and faculty concerning the Graduate School-sponsored Fellowship Incentive Plan follow below.
To receive the application incentive ($250) the following materials are required:
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- A letter from the student’s advisor verifying that the advisor reviewed the application and believes that it is competitive.
- Documentation that the amount of the fellowship provides greater than half of the student’s current base stipend.
- An electronic or hard copy PDF of the application.
- Verification of receipt of the application by the funding agency.
- Incentives apply to applications submitted January 2, 2007 or later.
These materials may be submitted to:
- Thomas Harris, 504 HUC, 996-4062, tharris@uab.edu (Graduate School Dean’s Office), or to
- Cyndi Knight, 504 HUC, 975-7188, cknight@uab.edu (Graduate School Dean's Office)
If the application is successfully funded, the student should provide a copy of the award notice to one of the individuals above (Thomas Harris or Cyndi Knight in the Dean’s Office) in order to receive the additional financial reward as described in the Plan Description.
Applications previously submitted January 2, 2007 or later are eligible for the fellowship incentives and require the materials described above. The incentives are not retroactive to applications submitted previous to January 2, 2007 or to current active awards.
We strongly encourage your students and faculty to participate in this new incentive program.