In a recent Nature article, Jingming Cai offers advice to junior academics looking to build their application-writing skills and find more success in pursuing fellowships and grants. Cai encourages graduate students to begin exploring fellowship and grant opportunities before they finish their PhD so that they can deliberately tailor their work, CV, and research identity to future opportunities. He asserts that early applications can serve as great learning opportunities and encourages applicants to request feedback and re-evaluate their failed submissions in order to better prepare for the next ones. Finally, Cai outlines the structure that he has developed for his applications and reminds academics to keep preparing for the next opportunity, even when they have received awards.
