JAMES S. MCDONNELL FOUNDATION (JSMF) FELLOWSHIP

1. The JSMF Fellowship is a unique opportunity for students with an interest in and an aptitude for complexity science who are in the final stages of completing their PhD and looking to add new dimensions to their graduate training that will either be difficult or impossible without an independent source of funding. Students should anticipate completing their degree requirements and activating the Fellowship between May and April.
2. In prior years, upwards of 70% of submissions were not advanced past the first review phase due to poor fit with the described goals of the program. JSMF requests that potential applicants and their advisors carefully consider the characteristics of this rather unusual Fellowship prior to applying. Important: This Fellowship is not intended for individuals that already have completed a Ph.D. or students that have already identified a postdoctoral position and a postdoctoral mentor as traditional funding mechanisms are better suited for such training positions. Such applications are ineligible for consideration.

Stated amount: 16,781,060

1. $200,000 USD to be expended in no less than 2 and no more than 3 years. Recently, JSMF has experienced Fellows using less than 50% of the fellowship funds. If you do not believe that you are committed to pursuing 2-to-3-year postdoctoral research please reconsider applying.
2. The cost of the full postdoctoral salary or stipend and fringe benefits must be paid in full from the fellowship.
3. Institutions cannot request that other funding sources be used to cover the Fellow’s salary or stipend; the primary purpose of this fellowship is the independence of the postdoctoral fellow. JSMF does not consider dependence on institutional or research grant funding as commensurate with such independence. The fellowship is not intended to provide general support to a laboratory or department.
4. If the institutional postdoctoral salary scales are set such that there are funds in excess of what is needed for stipend and benefits, the excess funds can be used by the institution to support the Fellow’s research. Information is not Available.