American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship

The American Heart Association (AHA) offers a Predoctoral Fellowship to enhance the research and clinical training of aspiring professionals in a predoctoral or clinical health degree.

At a glance:

stipend: $27,144
health insurance: $4,550 per year
project support and travel $2,000
can apply for up to two years of support
open to the array of aspiring academic and health professionals

Please note that this Fellowship requires you to either be an American Heart Association Professional Member or pay $349 for premium professional membership application submission (student memberships are $109).

This fellowship is subject to internal deadlines set by the Office of Contracts and Grants.

Determining Which On-Campus Office To Apply Through

Office of Contracts and Grants Administration (OCGA)

The submission requires an OCGA Grants Officer signature.
Students should contact the departmental fund manager assigned to their Faculty Mentor for assistance.

Deadlines

Visit the American Heart Association website for updates.

AHA Predoctoral Fellowship 2024 Deadlines
Date	Deadline	What's Due
August 23, 2023	Create KR record, notifying OCGA of intent to apply	KR record, including: Deadline Date, Agreement Type, Principal Investigator, Faculty Mentor, Organization/FinUnit Code, Sponsor
August 30, 2023	Internal Deadline	Route completed KR record to OCGA and email them that your application is in final form and ready for review.  If you submit your application for review without the attachments, the attachments will not be reviewed and it will be the responsibility of the applicant to check for formatting and other requirements.  OCGA will review the application, provide revisions if necessary, and sign the application. The student and mentor must sign before submitting the application to OCGA.  Letters of recommendation do not need to be submitted at this time. It is preferred but not required. The main objective for this deadline is to review application materials and obtain the institutional signature by OCGA.
September 6, 2023 by 3:00 PM Central Time	Agency Deadline	The student submits the application to AHA. By this time letters of recommendation should be uploaded. New: a student will not be able to submit their application until the reference writers have uploaded their letters to ProposalCentral.
Earliest award start date: January 1, 2024

The AHA Predoctoral Fellowship application is subject to both internal campus and AHA deadlines.

The AHA’s application allows for the student to submit their application directly to the agency in the portal. However, prior to submitting the application, the student must obtain a signature from the OCGA Grant Official to submit. To request the OCGA signature, all internal deadlines must be adhered to.

If you do not meet these internal deadlines, the OCGA cannot guarantee on-time submission. We will do our best to accommodate, however, delayed submission of materials may result in errors that take time to fix, which then result in a late submission.

Campus Requirements to Process AHA Application

Kuali Research Record Number

In order to have a Kuali Research (KR) Record assigned to your application, you need to request the assistance of your mentor's fund manager to complete this record. If you do not know who this person is, consult with your mentor.
The KR Record is used for the internal administration of the proposal, including the dissemination of COI forms.

Conflict of Interest Forms

Kuali Research Conflict of Interest (COI)
KR COI forms should be submitted prior to submission
The student, the mentor, and any co-mentors should submit COI forms
COI forms are submitted through Kuali COI, for more information, click the link above. A fund manager should assist in this process.
The American Heart Association has adopted the Public Health Service’s 2012 guidelines for conflict of interest (COI). Under the new regulations, graduate fellowships are subject to COI disclosure. Prior to submitting the AHA application, both the student applicant and the faculty sponsor must submit a COI Disclosure through Kuali COI.

How to Apply

Application Process

Submitting an American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship proposal is a multifaceted process. In addition to the AHA Application Guide link above, the following sections noted below provide additional and important information pertaining to the application process.

Accounts Needed for Submission

AHA Membership
https://professional.heart.org/en/partners
ProposalCentral
The American Heart Association uses an online application portal called Proposal Central from which you will prepare, submit, and track your application.
ORCID iD
AHA requires that you link your ProposalCentral account to an ORCID iD
NOTE: If there is not an ORCID iD linked to your application an error will be generated preventing the application from moving forward to consideration.

The Application

In ProposalCentral search for American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship under Grant Opportunities. 

2024 AHA Research Funding Application Instructions: These application instructions will walk you through the ProposalCentral Application (see UCSD Specific Information for Application for additional guidance).

Required Application Documents: This AHA instruction guide has detailed information about all of the attachments that should be uploaded into ProposalCentral, including Third-Party Personnel documents.

Helpful Tips:

Third-Party Personnel Uploads Section: Upload in this section ONLY, the uploads will be repeated in the upload attachment section if done correctly. You should be able to upload these documents after creating an entry for each key person. These documents should also meet the formatting requirements for AHA, the only document that you do not need to meet AHA formatting requirements are biosketches.
Click the validate button to run a quick check over your materials and the system will alert you if any materials are missing. This is a very superficial review, so double-check that your attachments follow the AHA Formatting Guidelines, referenced in the AHA Research Funding Application Instructions.
Budget: There are predetermined allowable costs for this fellowship, which include, stipend, health insurance, and other project support. This fellowship excludes indirect costs. You may apply for up to two years of support.

UCSD Specific Information for Application

ProposalCentral requires an institutional signature prior to submission. The student should sign the signature page first, then email a pdf of the online application to your fund manager to include in the KR proposal record. The fund manager will then route the completed KR record to OCGA by the internal deadline, notifying them that the application is ready for review. After the review, the OCGA Grant Official will sign the application and the student may submit to the agency.

Lead Institution	Select the Lead Institution “The Regents of the University of California, San Diego.” The information that populates should look like this:
Lead institution information	Address: 9500 Gilman Drive, Dept 0934 City: La Jolla State: CA Zip: 92093-0934 Country: United States Type of Institution: Public-Federal Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No Women-owned: No Type of Entity: State Duns Number: 80-435-5790 IRS EIN or TIN: 95-6006144 There should also be a long list of institutional contacts.
Contacts:
Grants Officer	Enter jmlapek@ucsd.edu email. This should populate the name of Signing Official Jeniffer Lapek.
Fiscal Officer	From the list, select Deston Halverson – Financial Officer (dehalverson@ucsd.edu)
Technology Transfer Officer	From the list, select Dolores Palacios – Technology Transfer Officer (dpalacios@ucsd.edu)

Letters of Reference

IMPORTANT: Each applicant must obtain three letters of reference. The applicant will not be able to submit their proposal until references have been uploaded to ProposalCentral.
The applicant’s Department Head, sponsor, co-sponsor, collaborating investigator or consultant contributing to the proposal may not serve as a reference writer.
A referent is an individual familiar with the applicant’s scientific interests and abilities. As a general best practice, it is helpful to provide your referees with a copy of your application so they can tailor their recommendation for your proposal. Remember, the best recommenders are those that can speak to your abilities to carry out the proposed project.
Letters should be composed by the referent and should not originate from the applicant.

Reference Letter Submission Process

Please visit the Reference Information page for information about the referent upload process and to download a template of the Reference Report form:
https://professional.heart.org/en/research-programs/application-information/required-application-documents/reference-information