Criteria for Success
- Your proposed research is eligible for the Fellowship (e.g., you do not propose research about a particular disease or clinical practice).
- Your research proposal convinces a panel of academics that you are qualified to receive the Fellowship through the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts criteria.
- You show that the proposed research is creative, original, or transformative.
- You show that you are actually capable of performing the research.
- Your proposal meets the formatting and page limit criteria updated by NSF on their website each year.
Structure Diagram
The above diagram shows the components of the research statement and what they should address (i.e. significance, feasibility, impact). The diagram below shows the section breakdowns for Background and Research Plan.
Note that according to NSF guidelines, “Intellectual Merit” and “Broader Impacts” should be addressed under separate headings. Otherwise, the sections, their sizes, and their order presented here are an example, not the rule.
Identify Your Purpose
Your research proposal (technically, the “Graduate Research Plan Statement”) is part of an application that should convince the selection panel to award you the Fellowship. In the proposal, you lay out a plan for your graduate research. The personal statement gives you space to explain the big picture of your past and future career; the research proposal is a place for scientific nuts and bolts. It is an opportunity to convince the selection panel that you are capable of being a successful researcher: that you have the intellectual ability to propose a creative, feasible research plan.
Note that if you win the Fellowship, no one will actually hold you to this particular research plan; this is a demonstration of critical thinking, not a commitment. However, because the Fellowship provides three years of funding, the proposal should be feasible to be executed by a graduate student in that timeframe.
Analyze Your Audience
Your entire application will be reviewed by a panel of “disciplinary and interdisciplinary scientists and engineers, and other professional graduate education experts”. These are academics, usually from your broad area of science (e.g., bioengineering) but not from your specific area (e.g., polymer biomechanics). Your selected “Major Field of Study” will influence the background of your reviewers (e.g., basic scientists vs engineers). Be sure to select the field in which you plan to enroll for graduate school, as you cannot change this later. For example, if you are an MIT BE graduate student at the time of applying, your Major Field of Study must be Engineering.
Skills
Show your ability to propose a creative research question or approach
Your proposal should present a novel research question or challenge and a creative approach for addressing it. Before sitting down to write, read current literature in your field. Make sure what you’re proposing to do hasn’t been done before or hasn’t been generally regarded as impossible. Look for emerging opportunities and follow ideas that excite you.
There’s typically a tradeoff between risk/reward and credibility. Low-risk projects, like obvious, simple extensions of your undergraduate thesis research, tend to be very credible: it’s clear that you can do them. They also tend to be low in reward. Projects that are very ambitious and have huge rewards tend to be unbelievable and infeasible for a single grad student. There’s a sweet spot in between: find a problem that you can probably solve and that demonstrates that you took initiative, know your field, and have some creative thoughts.
The selection panel knows that this is a graduate student fellowship and not the sort of grant that funds research for a lab. Because this application is about funding you and not a specific project, the panel is more interested in seeing what your proposal says about you rather than about your project. Spend more words showing that you are capable and creative rather than showing that you can cite many papers.
More strategies for developing ideas for a research proposal can be found below, as well as in the “Skills” section of the BE Thesis Proposal CommKit. The Thesis Proposal is similar in scope (i.e., research that can be executed during a PhD), but note that your Fellowship application is much shorter and will require a more concise description.
Lay out concrete hypotheses, approaches, and outcomes
Strong research proposals say what motivates the project, how the project will get done, and what the project’s outcome will mean with respect to the motivating scientific question. In the life sciences, scientists often label their key hypotheses or objectives as “specific aims”.
For each aim, motivate its goal and describe the specific steps you plan to take. Then, as best you can, outline concrete outcomes. Will you discover a protein? Will you have designed a certain tool? Having a clear end result can help you show how your research will meet the “Intellectual Merit” and “Broader Impacts” criteria: for instance, by saying, “Once I have thing X in hand, Y will be intellectually possible or will have Z effect on society.”
Demonstrate feasibility
Your research proposal will be judged, in part, on whether the reviewers believe you can actually execute it. Concreteness helps here. Make it clear that the project has a definite endpoint achievable within the three years funded by the Fellowship.
Feasibility can also be impacted by how much your aims depend on each other. The more independent they are, the easier it is to (impactfully) continue the project if you encounter significant challenges. Alternatively, address potential pitfalls by suggesting secondary approaches you could take. Since the research proposal is quite short, limit this discussion to a sentence or two focused on the most likely challenges.
Depending on your circumstances, there may be additional ways to demonstrate feasibility. You can include preliminary data, if available (this is not required). You can highlight key resources available in your (intended) graduate program, such as equipment or centers at your institution, mentorship from your advisor, and collaborations with other researchers. Demonstrate that you will have the right materials and intellectual input that you will need to solve your problem. Again, this is not because you’ll be expected to actually complete this research. Rather, the goal is to convey your resourcefulness and the likelihood that you’ll excel as a researcher in general.
Address the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts criteria
Read the NSF GRFP program solicitation (updated for each application cycle) so you know what “Intellectual Merit” and “Broader Impacts” refer to. Explicitly describe how your proposed research meets these criteria under dedicated headings. These headings are required, and “Intellectual Merit” and “Broader Impacts” are key criteria on which your research proposal (and personal statement) will be evaluated. In particular, do not just make up your own ideas about what these terms mean. The program solicitation defines both criteria and provides a list of examples.
Write for a reader outside your field and short on attention
Tailor your application to academics from a broad background within your selected “Major Field of Study”. Use simple language rather than field jargon. It’s more important that all the members of your panel understand your work than that you impress the one member of the panel who happens to be in your field.
Reviewers read many, many applications. Make it easy for them to determine that you are an excellent candidate! Organize your proposal into sections with clear headings. Judiciously use bolding or italics to emphasize key points, such as your overall goal, the objective of each aim, or the transformative impact of the proposed research. Explicitly state what you’re doing and why, as reviewers pressed for time may miss points in your proposal that you think are implied.
Solicit feedback
Find mentors, such as your research supervisor, and seek their feedback and advice. More senior scientists like postdocs and faculty members have a lot of experience crafting research proposals, and they are similar to the kinds of people who will be on your selection panel. Your proposal should excite someone who is in your exact field. If they have any reservations about whether the project is interesting, then scientists outside your field will have an even more difficult time believing that you can develop research ideas worth pursuing.
Ask someone outside of your particular field to read your proposal. This will help identify areas that are unclear, too specific or jargon-heavy, or lacking motivation. Your peers and Comm Fellows are great resources! Additionally, the Comm Lab usually hosts an NSF GRFP workshop in the fall. This is a great time to brainstorm ideas for your research proposal, discuss with other participants, and ask questions.
This CommKit article was originally written by Scott Olesen with contribution from Manu Kumar, Communication Fellows, published in 2016. In 2026, it was updated with significant revisions from Kasey Love and Justine Shih, Communication Fellows. These updates reflect our growing understanding of the fellowship and strategies to approach it, as well as the changes in NSF GRFP guidelines over the years.
Resources and Annotated Examples
Annotated Example 1
This is a research statement that was part of an MIT BE graduate student’s successful NSF GRFP application. 4 MB
Annotated Example 2
NOTE: This example is from BEFORE NSF required separate headings for Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts. This is a research statement that was part of an MIT BE graduate student’s successful NSF GRFP application. 1 MB