Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

Funds postdoctoral research training in Friedreich ataxia with sustained fellowship support.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) Postdoctoral Fellowship Award supports early-career scientists pursuing innovative research on inherited retinal degenerations (IRD) and dry age-related macular degeneration (dAMD) at non-profit research institutions worldwide. The Foundation, established in 1971 and headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, has raised nearly $996 million to date and funds more than 113 research grants annually across 124 investigators at 90 U.S. institutions and labs in 16 countries. The Postdoctoral Fellowship Award is the Foundation's entry-level investigator mechanism, aimed at training the next generation of retinal disease researchers under faculty mentorship.

Each award provides $80,000 per year for two years, for a total of $160,000; funds are paid to the host institution, not directly to the fellow. Eligible applicants must hold a doctoral degree — Ph.D., D.V.M., D.O., or O.D. — earned within the past five years and must not be serving in an internship or residency at the time of application. Both domestic and international non-profit institutions are accepted as eligible host organizations. Case-by-case exceptions exist for applicants with five or more years of postdoctoral experience. The FY26 letter of intent deadline was October 16, 2025, and the full application deadline was March 5, 2026, by invitation only. The FY27 cycle is expected in mid-to-late 2026.

The program follows the same two-stage LOI-then-invitation process used across most FFB awards. The mentor relationship is central to the Fellowship's design: the program aims to foster professional growth, networking, and long-term research collaborations in the retinal disease field. Strong applications pair a clearly independent research question with a mentor whose laboratory has an established track record in IRD or dAMD. Applications are submitted via the online portal at onlineapplicationportal.com/blindness/, and the Foundation actively encourages applications from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and gender groups as well as individuals with disabilities.