What this program funds
The Sloan Research Fellowships recognize early-career scientists whose work marks them as rising leaders in their fields. The award is flexible research support, not a project grant: fellows can typically spend the funds on equipment, travel, summer salary, research assistance, or other activities that advance their research, with far fewer strings than a federal grant. In recent cycles the fellowship has covered a defined set of fields — chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics — so check that your discipline is on the current list.
Eligibility in plain English
- You hold a tenure-track (or equivalent) faculty position at a U.S. or Canadian institution.
- You are early in your independent career — recent cycles have looked for candidates within roughly six years of the PhD, with allowances for career interruptions.
- Your field is one the fellowship currently covers.
- You cannot apply on your own behalf. Candidates must be nominated, typically by a department head or another senior researcher, and the nomination package includes letters from senior scientists who know your work.
- Details shift from cycle to cycle — confirm current rules with your research development office before assuming anything here still holds.
What you'll need to submit
Because this is a nomination, much of the package is assembled around you rather than by you, but you will typically provide:
- A nomination letter from a department head or senior colleague (this is the piece you must arrange, not write).
- Supporting letters from senior researchers, usually including voices from outside your own institution.
- A short research statement describing your work and its significance — brief, and written for scientists in your broad field rather than narrow specialists.
- A CV and one or two representative publications.
Tips for this mechanism
- Start the nomination conversation in spring. Fall deadlines arrive fast, and your chair may be juggling several potential nominees. Raising it early also gives letter writers real time.
- Cultivate external letter writers before you need them. Letters from senior scientists at other institutions who can speak concretely about your work carry particular weight; conference relationships and seminar invitations are how those letters get grounded.
- Write the research statement for breadth. Selection committees span a whole discipline. A statement legible only to your subfield undersells work that is genuinely important.
- Treat it as recognition, not project funding. The strongest cases read as "this person is shaping the field," not "this project needs money." Frame your trajectory, not a single study.
Related programs
- Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering (institution-nominated)
- Searle Scholars Program and Pew Biomedical Scholars (for biomedical fields)
- NSF CAREER (project-based early-career award)
- Cottrell Scholar Award (physics, chemistry, and astronomy at primarily undergraduate and research institutions)