NSF graduate research fellowship numbers return to normal

On April 13, the US National Science Foundation awarded 2,599 graduate research fellowships for the coming academic year, the highest number of awards since 2023. It’s also a significant jump from the 1,504 fellowships awarded in 2025. 

Last year, the NSF announced a record-low number of fellowships for its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Only 1,000 students were notified they were successful in April, with an additional 504 awardees being added in July.

Gisèle Muller-Parker, who directed the GRFP from 2008 to 2018, says it was great to see the number of GRFP awards returning to what it used to be. “I would like to think it was [because of] our hard work advocating for GRFP at several levels,” she says.

Turbulence in GRFP application process

This year’s jump in the number of awardees came despite an especially bumpy application cycle, which began when the NSF gave students only 46 days to complete their applications—about half the normal time. The foundation also unexpectedly updated the GRFP eligibility criteria, making it so that second-year graduate students could no longer apply.

Up until that point, students were allowed to apply up to two times, once as an undergraduate and again as either a first- or second-year graduate student. This year, however, “the second-year grad students were out of luck,” Muller-Parker says, and first-year students who were planning to apply next year suddenly had to scramble to pull their applications together.

According to reporting by Eos, an unusually high number of GRFP applications for the 2026 GRFP were returned without review. In an email provided to these applicants, the NSF says that the proposed research did not fall within its list of eligible fields.

An analysis by watchdog group Grant Witness suggests that a disproportionate amount of the returned applications belonged to students within the life sciences, as first reported by Science. Life sciences had already fared poorly in 2025, garnering only 14% of awards rather than the roughly 25% they have made up, on average, since at least 2014. 

Life sciences fared better this year, but they still made up a smaller percentage than usual at only 19%. By contrast, engineering, which typically represents around one-quarter of GRFP awards, made up 35% of the 2026 award total. 

Unlike most science fellowships, the GRFP—which provides students with 3 years of financial support—funds the person, not the project. Choosing to prioritize one field over another goes against this idea, Muller-Parker says.

In an email to C&EN, NSF spokesperson Michelle Negrón says that the GRFP “strives to build a strong U.S. science and engineering workforce across all NSF-supported fields, with emphasis on areas of critical national interest and Administration priorities.”

Chemistry GRFP numbers hold roughly steady

With regards to chemistry, 214 students in the discipline were given awards this year, or around 8% of the total awards. That’s a typical share but a slight drop from last year, when the field earned around 10% of the GRFP awards. 

In terms of subdisciplines, the fields of “chemical synthesis” and “chemistry of life processes” were each awarded just over 19% of chemistry’s overall awards. The subdiscipline “macromolecular, supramolecular, and nanochemistry” came in second at 15% of chemistry’s GRFP total, a share that’s grown since 2024, when it made up 10.4% of chemistry awards. 

The percentage of chemistry awards that fall into “environmental chemical sciences and sustainable chemistry” seems to have taken a dip, but analysis is hampered by the small number of awards in these and several other subdiscipline categories.

Outlook beyond 2026 still uncertain

Although award numbers may be back up for 2026, that doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. In its most recent presidential budget request, the Donald J. Trump administration has proposed slashing the NSF’s fiscal year 2027 budget by 54.5%.

According to Negrón, “The final number of fellowship award offers are contingent on congressional appropriations and the allocation of funds.”

Last year, when the administration called for a 57% budget cut to the agency for fiscal year 2026, it proposed cutting funding for the GRFP by half to stay within the reduced budget. But Congress pushed back on Trump’s proposal and kept the GRFP funded at previous levels.

“I think that Congress is our biggest help in all of this,” Muller-Parker says. As long as they continue to support the GRFP, “there is hope.”