Applicants must:
1. Hold a MD, PhD, ScD, DO, PharmD, or equivalent degree in a relevant clinical discipline.
2. Be a clinical fellow, postdoctoral fellow, or newly appointed clinical faculty member within five years of first full-time appointment at an appropriate institution by the beginning of the project term. Researchers with appointments at the level of Adjunct Professor or Associate Professor are not eligible, nor are research assistants, graduate or medical students, medical residents, permanent government employees, or employees of private industry.
3. Have a defined research plan and access to institutional resources to conduct the proposed project.
4. Be able to devote at least 50% of their time to the Research and Training Fellowship. If a reduced protected time is deemed necessary by an early career clinical faculty applicant, such requests will be considered on a case by case manner and on a competitive basis, provided that such requests do not compromise the training experience and research goals of the applicant’s project. Early career clinical faculty applicants who request reduced effort for their RTFC must include in their application a justification and elaborate on their plans to ensure that the research and training goals of the RTFC will be met.
5. Have a qualified mentor with expertise to supervise and provide guidance on epilepsy-related research. The mentor must not also be serving as the primary mentor for any other applications for early career grants to AES and must not be submitting a Junior Investigator Research Award.
6. Not be, or have previously been, the Principal Investigator on a multi-year research or career development or project grant, such as an NIH K08, K23, K99/R00, R01, or R03. However, individuals who received support through an institutional K awards (i.e. K12) are eligible provided that the provided funds do not overlap.
7. Have not previously been awarded a Research and Training Fellowship for Clinicians.

In addition:
8. Physician applicants whose research will involve patient care or direct involvement with patients must have completed all residency training and be licensed to practice medicine at their institution.
9. US citizenship is not required; however, all research must be conducted in the US
10. Applications are encouraged from women, members of minority groups, and people with disabilities.

1. Prior unfunded applicants may reapply, but all applications will be treated as new submissions.
2. Only one application may be submitted from a given laboratory to the AES early career grant programs. Specifically, an individual may not serve as the primary mentor for more than one application across all mentored award programs. Similarly, an individual may not apply for a Junior Investigator Research Award and also be listed as the primary mentor on a proposal for a mentored award. If more than one application is submitted from a single laboratory (as reflected by the primary mentor or investigator) across the early career programs (Predoctoral Research Fellowship, Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Research & Training Fellowship for Clinicians, Junior Investigator Research Awards, and Epilepsy Study Consortium Mini-Grants), only one of those proposals will be reviewed.
3. More than one application may be submitted from a single institution, but final funding decisions will take into account a preference to limit multiple awards to one institution.

Deadline: Friday, January 14, 2022

Important Dates for Applicants:
- September 2021: Application submission opens through ProposalCentral
- January 14, 2022: Full proposals due
- May 2022: Award notifications sent out
- July 1, 2022: Earliest award start date. May be delayed up to 3 months.