NSF Seeks Partnerships to Fund Graduate Fellows

The National Science Foundation is assessing potential partnerships to bolster this year’s graduate fellowship program amid deep uncertainty over the agency’s future budget. The pilot program, announced yesterday during an open meeting of the National Science Board, the agency’s governing board, is seeking money from outside the agency to fund fellowships for prospective graduate students who received honorable mentions in this year’s application process.

The graduate fellowship program, the largest in the U.S., selected 1,000 fellows in April, compared to around 2,000 students in previous years. In addition, the number of students who received honorable mentions reached a new high of around 3,000.

“We are in a situation that thousands of very deserving, bright students, who are American citizens or residents, really are left without support, and oftentimes we potentially are losing them,” said board member Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, who introduced the initiative at the meeting. “How can we potentially find other sources for fellowships for those 3,000 students, not only now on an emergency basis, but also think of potential future partnership among those sectors?” she added.

Grejner-Brzezinska did not specify the reason why NSF awarded significantly fewer graduate fellowships this year. Congress passed legislation in March that maintained NSF’s budget at the same level as the previous fiscal year, giving it a topline of about $9 billion. However, President Donald Trump said in March that he would not agree to appropriate funds for NSF’s $234 million construction budget, which Congress supplied via “emergency” spending. It is unclear if NSF can transfer money from other accounts to cover the shortfall.

Trump has now proposed far deeper cuts to the agency, requesting less than $4 billion for fiscal year 2026, which represents about a 56% cut to the current enacted amount.

Grejner-Brzezinska said the board is now reaching out to industry, philanthropy, and state governments to gauge their interest in funding three-year-long graduate fellowships under their own organizations’ names while “sustaining the original spirit” of the NSF program. These partners would be able to request lists of students who received honorable mentions and choose fellows based on research interests or the student’s school or geographic location, she added.

“This is now a race against time, because we really want those other students to receive fellowships before the start of the next academic year,” Grejner-Brzezinska said.

More broadly, the initiative could also yield cross-sector partnerships that help build up domestic STEM talent, a key part of the board’s idea for a National Defense Education Act 2.0, board member Joan Ferrini-Mundy said.

“Ensuring the future of STEM capacity and the workforce isn’t just the job of the federal government,” Ferrini-Mundy said. “Here are ways now that… other sectors who benefit from these investments and these outstanding doctoral students, they can have a stake directly in U.S. research and development.”

Board sidesteps turmoil at NSF

The board did not publicly address the president’s proposed budget cuts to NSF nor other recent developments at the agency, including the capping of indirect cost rates at 15% and the termination of around 1,400 grants over the past three weeks.

Acting Board Chair Victor McCrary only alluded to the turmoil. “Going forward, the landscape of science and engineering has changed, and NSF also needs to continue to grow and evolve,” McCrary said. “I hope that we will embrace this as a moment of opportunity and continue to deliver on a mission that is more important than ever. … You don’t learn how to sail on calm seas.”

“NSB is working with the management team towards creating a leaner, more efficient next-generation NSF,” McCrary added.

The board also did not address the circumstances surrounding NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan’s abrupt resignation from the agency last month, other than brief remarks by McCrary thanking Panchanathan for his service and acknowledging NSF staff who have recently decided to retire or leave the agency. NSF encouraged staff to consider accepting deferred resignation deals following Panchanathan’s resignation, warning of “future restructuring, staffing reductions, and constrained budget environments” that will “constrain future opportunities” at the agency.

The board kept its discussion of budget scenarios and recommendations to replace Panchanathan to a closed session.

The remainder of the open session consisted of a presentation that argued China is experiencing a “dawn of big science” similar to what the U.S. went through at the end of World War II and over the course of the Cold War.

“I think it’s very clear, if we do nothing and just ignore the fact that China is trying to replicate our success, or, even worse, continue to decrease our investment into basic science and engineering, we’ll wake up in a decade and China will be leading the next wave of innovation in commercial fusion, in quantum computing, in next generation commercial aerospace, in life sciences and discovery,” said presenter Jimmy Goodrich, senior adviser for technology analysis at RAND, a think tank.

Last Friday, the day of the budget request’s release, the union representing NSF published an open letter to the board asking them to openly oppose budget and workforce cuts, grant terminations, and rollbacks of broadening participation goals.

“As this crisis has built over the last 100 days, the NSB has been largely silent. We do not believe that you agree with what is happening,” the letter states. “What is your role, if not to draw attention to this very visible and growing crisis? Hundreds of thousands of scientists and educators need your help. Please do not hesitate to take a stand defending NSF, even if it is your last act as a member of the NSB.”

Six former directors of NSF and seven former chairs of NSB also criticized the proposed budget cuts on Monday in a letter addressed to the leaders of the appropriations subcommittees for NSF. The proposed budget would “thwart scientific progress, decimate the research workforce, and take a decade or more to recover,” they wrote.

The letter notes that the president laid out a vision for science and technology in his letter to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios, including becoming the “unrivaled world leader” in critical and emerging technologies, “revitalizing” the science and technology enterprise, and fueling economic growth and bettering American lives.

“Achieving the president’s vision requires a major enhancement of the NSF budget, ideally a doubling of the FY25 level over the next few years and sufficient staff to execute this vision,” the former NSF and NSB leaders state in their letter. “In the current political climate, we know this is a bold request. We make it, nonetheless, to say — if we truly wish to realize this vision, we must commit to a historic investment in fundamental research and education.”