Fellowship Grant

Application Due Date: January 15

Average Acceptance Rate: ~30%

Length of Award: 1-3 years

Average Award Total: $48,000 USD/year

Graduate students (Ph.D. and Masters)

Postdoctoral researchers

We actively seek individuals who want to collaborate and solve the technical challenges of cellular agriculture alongside other scholars rather than in individual silos.

1. Proposal (6-10 pages, on average)
2. Anticipated budget
3. Anticipated timeline
4. Three to five names of independent reviewers (either professors or qualified postdocs) who have agreed to review the candidate’s proposal
5. Personal statement
6. Curriculum vitae (CV)

Before the due date: 

Candidates must first register through New Harvest’s SurveyMonkey application portal in order to download the application packet.

Candidates must then find a professor (with an academic affiliation) willing to supervise their project and advise the candidate’s proposal for funding.

We encourage all prospective grantees to email Research Operations and  Outreach Director Breanna Duffy at breanna@new-harvest.org with questions about the application process, and to schedule a call with Research Program Director Jeremiah Johnston to discuss the nature of their proposal.

During the application process: 

Applicants submit their entire application packet (see above) for review by New Harvest personnel.

An application must first pass the Internal Review Round. If advanced, a proposal then proceeds through the following stages:

1. Independent Review. New Harvest contacts the experts provided by the candidate to submit a review of the candidate’s proposal.
2. Revision Stage. After at least two experts have reviewed a candidate’s proposal, New Harvest will forward the reviews to the candidate. Along with their PI, candidates have one week to make modifications to their application before resubmitting
3. Interview Stage. Structured, 30-minute interviews conducted separately with both the candidate and their primary advisor.

On average, an applicant can expect to hear back from New Harvest with a final decision four months after their final interview.

Internal Review Round:

New Harvest will only consider applications if:

• The research is justifiably within the scope of cellular agriculture (see the target focus areas in how we support)
• The candidate has a primary advisor with an academic affiliation
• A single, primary applicant plans to undertake the work and serve as a New Harvest Fellow

Beyond these points, projects are then ranked using a tiered system, with points given for categories concerning both the subject area of the project and the logistics as they appear on paper.

In 2020, the top six candidates were advanced to the next round.

Final Selection Round:

The final evaluation of an application pulls together three individual categories, two of which are weighed roughly equally.

1. Scientific Impact. In general, research that is more fundamental (so as to be broadly applicable) is scored higher than more applied projects.
2. Community Impact. An average score is collected from the interview with the applicant, the primary advisor, and the personal statement. Recall that the New Harvest Fellowship is much more than just money to fund research—we are looking for people who actively want to participate within and eventually lead the field of cellular agriculture (in whatever capacity makes sense to them).
3. The Budget. New Harvest guarantees three years of funding for each applicant. We will not fund a project unless we have the money in the bank for it. Therefore, in rare cases (when all else is equal), the proposed budget can break ties. This is also why we encourage applicants to continue applying for other funding opportunities during the application process. Slight preference may be given to applicants who have secured matching funds.

New Harvest Fellows are invited to participate in the following activities:

1. Fellow Up (weekly). A mandatory and moderated virtual lab meeting where fellows share the highs and lows of their weeks in and out of lab. It runs between 60-90 minutes long and is conducted over chat in Slack.
2. Lab Meet (annual). An in-person retreat with five days of formal programming. This is a time for bonding, collaboration, and skill sharing. New Harvest staff use the lab meet to collect feedback and data from the fellows in order to improve the program.
3. The New Harvest Conference (annual). Fellows are encouraged to share their research with the cellular agriculture community in a talk or poster at the New Harvest Conference.
4. Engagement (ongoing). New Harvest will sometimes ask fellows to act as representatives for the greater field of cellular agriculture in the form of interviews with press and public-facing presentations. These are voluntary opportunities to leverage technical expertise and foster leadership.

Travel:

When asked to travel specifically for a New Harvest event (such as the New Harvest Lab Meet or New Harvest conference), we will provide fellows an allowance to cover travel costs.