Office for Research Advancement

Sloan Research Fellowship  

Nominations for the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowships will open on Friday, July 15, 2022.

• Nominations will close on Thursday, September 15, 2022, and awards will be announced on Wednesday, February 15, 2023.

All nomination materials, including nomination letters and all letters of support, must be submitted through the Foundation’s online application system no later than September 15, 2022:  11:59PM EDT,  

Nomination

In order to be considered for a Sloan Research Fellowship, a candidate must have a letter of nomination from a department head or other senior researcher. Submissions unaccompanied by a nomination letter from a senior researcher are not accepted.

Limited Submission per department:

• More than one candidate from a department may be nominated, but no more than three.   Colleges/Departments manage their own selection process if there are more than three from a department.

Eligibility Requirements

• Candidates must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, molecular biology, neuroscience, physics, or a related field.
• Candidates must be members of the faculty of a college, university, or other degree-granting institution in the U.S. or Canada.
• Candidates must be tenure-track, though untenured, as of September 15 of the nomination year.
• Candidate’s faculty position must carry a regular teaching obligation.

The Sloan Research Fellowship Program recognizes and rewards outstanding early-career faculty who have the potential to revolutionize their fields of study. Successful candidates for a Fellowship generally have a strong record of significant independent research accomplishments that demonstrate creativity and the potential to become future leaders in the scientific community. Nominated candidates are normally several years past the completion of their Ph.D. in order to accumulate a competitive record of independent, significant research.

In keeping with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's longstanding support of underrepresented minorities in the sciences, the Foundation strongly encourages the nomination of qualified women and minority candidates.

Materials Required

• A letter from a department head or other senior researcher officially nominating the candidate and describing his or her qualifications, initiative, and research; 
• The candidate's curriculum vitae (including a list of the candidates' scientific publications);
• Two representative articles by the candidate that highlight his or her independent research;
• A brief (one-page) statement by the candidate describing his or her significant scientific work and immediate research plans;
• Three letters from other researchers (preferably not all from the same institution) written in support of the candidate’s nomination.

Nomination Letters and Letters of Support are important elements of the selection process and are read carefully by Selection Committees. The letters allow nominators and support writers to give Committee members insight about nominees that is not present in their other application materials (CV, publication list, etc.). Selection Committees recommend that letters of support be submitted by someone who can speak objectively and knowledgeably about the quality and significance of a nominee’s work. Letters submitted by co-authors, personal associates, or professional mentors are, in this sense, less useful to Selection Committees than letters submitted by those with more professional distance from a nominee’s work.