Dissertation research fellowships

[wheninhell]

Technical question about dissertation research fellowships: if you accept a fellowship to fund a year of research, and then are offered a more prestigious fellowship part-way through your original fellowship period, is it possible to cut the original fellowship period short in order to accept the more prestigious one?  The timing on all of these big fellowships is staggered and not ideal since I want to get into the field ASAP, but I do want to have something fancy to put on my CV.

[fuzzylogician]

These things depend on the fellowship. You will need to look at the terms of the fellowship and maybe try and ask someone (e.g. call and ask without identifying yourself, if you are worried about that). Some fellowships will allow you to hold more than one fellowship at the same time, others will allow you to defer the start date somewhat, so there can be ways of making it work. Or indeed you'll have to give up your fellowship for the fancier one, but there is more than one way that could happen so it really depends.

[TakeruK]

Agreed with fuzzy. You might also want to contact your school's awards office / sponsored research office to see if they have advice. If these are awards that other students have juggled in the past, they might already have a solution (and in general, they know the policies better). It's in the school's best interest, usually, to see that you get the most money possible, so they might be a helpful resource.

[Horb]

My only concern would be that some fellowships, if cut short, require you to pay back the money you were given, unless the reason for cutting it short was medical or something other type of emergency. Look for that in the fine print of your fellowship contract (or just call, as other's suggested).