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Summer Funding

Funding Overview
 

HMS medical students may apply to several funding sources for research or community engagement projects carried out in the summer between year one and year two. Funding may come from professional societies, national funders, or the Office of Scholarly Engagement (OSE) and the student’s mentor.

Students are encouraged to apply for funding from outside the OSE. In most cases, students can apply directly to the funding sources. Visit the External Funding page for information. 

No credit is awarded for summer projects since students are unenrolled at that time.

OSE Funding
 

HMS medical students can apply to the OSE for partial funding, $1250/month, for summer projects that are a minimum of 8 weeks full-time. Mentors are expected to match the funding that OSE can provide.

Matching Funding Expectation:  Mentors should acknowledge their funding contribution (or lack thereof) in the Mentor Agreement Form. Mentors pay their funding contribution directly to the student. If you are unable to secure matching funding, note this in your proposal and the OSE team will work with you.

Application & Deadlines
 

Students participate in a rigorous application and review process to be eligible for OSE funding.

HST students: Work through the London Society to prepare your application for OSE funding.

Pathways Application Process

Apply

Pathways students: Follow the procedures below.
 

  1. By February 1, students with global health projects should complete the Application for Summer Funding.
  2. By March 15 (deadline extended), all other students should complete the Application for Summer Funding.  
  3. By April 1, your mentor must complete the Mentor agreement form
  4. By April 1, email the following to ose@hms.harvard.edu
    1. Mentor NIH-formatted biosketch (or a short CV)
    2. Project Proposal (Follow the Scholarly Project Proposal Guidelines)

Your proposal will be reviewed by OSE faculty. The OSE will notify you if you need to make revisions to your proposal. It may take at least one month from submission to approval of your funding request.

No late applications will be accepted.

After Approval

Once your proposal is approved, OSE will you send a formal award letter with a payment schedule for your funding. Funding is disbursed in two installments over the summer. 

Make sure that your mailing address in https://my.harvard.edu/ is up to date throughout the summer and fall.  Your first stipend payment will be mailed to you and you will be invited to set up direct deposit for future payments.

If the focus of your project changes, you should notify OSE immediately and the office will advise you on next steps.

Whenever appropriate, cite your HMS funding with this wording, “Supported in part by the Office of Scholarly Engagement, Program in Medical Education, Harvard Medical School.”

Report & Abstract Requirements

All students who receive OSE funding must submit:

  1. By September 15, email to ose@hms.harvard.edu a short report on their summer experience 
  2. By January 31, submit an abstract on their funded project for the annual Soma Weiss Student Research Day.  Abstract submission forms are sent in the fall. Your mentor must review and approve this abstract.   

Report

Upon completion of your project and no later than September 15, write a short report (1-2 pages) on the summer experience and submit it to ose@hms.harvard.edu:

  1. Include your name and email, your mentor’s name and email, department and institution where your project took place, project title, and the start and end dates of your summer project.
  2. Describe your aims. Copy and paste your original aims from the proposal if they have not changed. Restate the aims or update them if they changed.
  3. Describe any data that you personally collected. (We don’t need an analysis of your data.)
  4. Describe your specific role in the project (use “I” statements). Describe your plan to complete your project or how you will hand it off to another person.
  5. Describe what you personally accomplished and any obstacles encountered.

Abstract

Students who received OSE funding must submit a scholarly abstract on their funded project by January 31 using the abstract submission form. Information on abstract writing is on the internal Soma Weiss Student Research Day site. All medical and dental students who carried out research or service projects while at HMS are invited to submit a scholarly abstract.

If you have any questions, contact the staff at ose@hms.harvard.edu.

An Option: Summer Research to Scholarly Project

Your summer research is intended to be a time of inquiry and discovery. You are not required to make your summer project the basis of your scholarly project. You will have time in the post-PCE years to identify and carry out a scholarly project.

Nevertheless, if you want to make your summer project your scholarly project, you can declare that formally at any time in year 1 or 2 by submitting an updated proposal to scholarsinmedicine@hms.harvard.edu. Note in your proposal if there are any changes such as mentor, aims, methods, or deliverables. Update the timeline of when you will be working on the scholarly project. Make sure your IRB approval covers you during the extended timeline you propose.

In rare cases, students who carried out an OSE-funded summer research project might have a manuscript accepted or published by their PCE year or post-PCE year. That manuscript or publication can become part of the student’s scholarly report. In these circumstances, we encourage you to submit your scholarly report early and not wait until your graduation year. Scholarly report writing guidelines are on the OSE internal page.