American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship

Visit the American Heart Association website for updates. 

Kuali Research Record Number

• In order to have a Kuali Research (KR) Record Number assigned to your application, you need to request the assistance of your mentor's fund manager to create this number. If you do not know who this person is, consult with your mentor.
• The KR Record Number 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 the Financial Interest Disclosure for PHS-Funded Research form to UCSD's COI office. All COI forms should be submitted through Kuali COI.

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. 

2021 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 uploads 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 does 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 submit a ticket to the Services and Support portal to notify the Graduate Fellowship Advisor that the application is ready for review by the internal deadline. After the review, the application will be signed 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-FederalSocially 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 at the end that begin with Orantes Wilma, Brown Michael, etc.
  Contacts
  Grants Officer	Enter gradadvisor@ucsd.edu email. This should populate the Graduate Division Dean’s information (James Antony).
  Fiscal Officer	From the list, select Mark Cooper – Financial Officer

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

After completing the submission process, applicants receiving an award will be notified via email and the award activation process will begin. If/When you receive the notice of award that states that your application has been successful; you will be prompted to complete an Award Agreement.

The Award Agreement will require information from the Awardee/PI, the AHA reference number, and the project title/period. After the Awardee/PI has populated the document with this information, your next step will be to acquire all of the necessary signatures. Please ensure that all other information and signatures are added to the document, prior to requesting signatures from Graduate Division.