RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research Program
On-line Application

Welcome to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program On-line application. This website allows you to apply to the Program for entry in August 2011 for the 2011 - 2013 cohort. All applicants must apply on-line at this site. Before beginning the application process, visit www.healthpolicyscholars.org for details about the Program and descriptions of the three university sites. Thank you for your interest in the Program.

See http://www.healthpolicyscholars.org/sub-eligibility/eligibility.html.

We embrace racial, ethnic and gender diversity, and encourage applications from candidates who come from groups that historically have been underrepresented in the three disciplines of interest.

You will be able to work on your application, save it, and return to it at a later time. We recommend that you review the entire application before you start the on-line application process. Click here to see the entire on-line application.

• Personal references. Submit contact information for three personal references, who will provide letters of recommendation. One of the three references must be your dissertation chair unless you can justify why an exception to this requirement is needed. In order to allow your references as much lead time as possible, you will be asked to complete and submit this section before starting the rest of the application. To complete the Personal references section, you will need to provide contact information for all three references during the same submission. After you submit this information, we will notify your references by email and provide them with instructions for on-line submission of letters of recommendation. All letters of recommendation must be submitted by the application deadline of October 13, 2010. Before you submit contact information, you should contact your references, confirm that they are able to provide a letter and inform them that they will receive an email notification outlining how to submit their recommendations. Please note that you will be able to change a reference later as long as the original reference has not already submitted a letter of recommendation to us.
• Personal information. This includes your educational experience, work history, honors/awards, and publication citations.
• Dissertation summary: In 2,100 characters, summarize your dissertation research in terms that a broad audience would understand.
• Personal statements. You will be asked to provide two objective statements:

  a) Interest in Health Policy Research: Please describe the reasons why you are interested in adding or substantially expanding health policy research within your research portfolio at this point in your professional development (please do NOT repeat information about your dissertation that you have already provided). Be sure to include how pursuing research in health policy might help you to accomplish your career goals. Limit your response to 2,100 characters (this includes spaces and punctuation).

  b) Intellectual objectives: Please describe one or more analytical questions in health policy that interest you and that you may currently anticipate investigating as a participant in the Program. Explain what analytical perspective you would bring to the analysis and how your approach could enhance the understanding of the issue(s) by health policy specialists, policy makers, and the public. Also, please describe specific ways in which you expect that your analysis could be strengthened by your overall participation in the Program and by incorporating the perspectives of the other two social science disciplines represented in the Program. This essay should NOT be a research proposal nor a recitation of your dissertation. Limit your response to 2,100 characters (this includes spaces and punctuation)

• Writing sample: Attach a writing sample that is authored solely by you, not to exceed 25 double-spaced pages of text in 12 point font that you consider to be representative of your research and analytic ability. This sample need not be health-oriented. It may be a chapter from your doctoral dissertation, a journal article, a paper currently under journal review or other unpublished work. The writing sample must format to 8½" x 11" paper and be solo-authored. The sample must be submitted electronically as one Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. The PDF format is required to ensure the proper retention of document formatting. Instructions for uploading your document are provided in the "Writing Sample" section of the on-line application.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 (5:00 PM EDT):	Deadline for submission of applications
January 2011:	Finalist interviews
Late February 2011:	Notification of acceptance
August 2011:	Entry of Scholars into the Program at participating universities

CONTINUE WITH APPLICATION

If you have additional questions regarding the Program, please contact:

RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research Program
Boston University Health Policy Institute
53 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215-2197
Phone: (617) 353-9220
Fax: (617) 353-9227
E-mail: rwjf@bu.edu

If you have technical questions or problems with the on-line application process, please fill out an on-line support request with the RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research on-line Application Support team at: http://www.rwjshpr.org/supportRequest.php.