In an unexpected turnaround, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a record 2,599 of its prestigious graduate fellowships to young researchers on Sunday. after briefly reducing that number to just 1,000 last year.
This rebound “is a significant boost for early-career researchers and for the future of American science,” says Joshua Weitz, a biologist at the University of Maryland in College Park.
The surprise increase comes at a time when many in the U.S. scientific community are concerned about the fate of the NSF, a major funder of basic science, and its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Last yearAnd again this yearthe administration of US President Donald Trump has called for cutting the NSF budget by more than half.
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The GRFP appeared to be in even more difficulty when the call for applications for the 2026 program was launched more than two months late and the eligibility criteria for scholarships changed. As of this year, undergraduates and first-year master’s and doctoral students can apply – but second-year graduate students, as has been the norm for decades, cannot. Between January and April, at least 65 applications were also ‘returned without notice’ (returned to candidates without a score), based on data shared with Nature by Grant a witnessa monitoring project that tracks changes in research funding. This has raised concerns that the type of science the NSF would fund had also changed.
But some of those concerns were assuaged with the announcement of a record number of GRFP winners this year.
Brian Stone, who serves as NSF director until a permanent position is confirmed, said in a statement that the continuation of the program reflects the Trump administration’s “strong focus on developing talent and investing in individual researchers.” He added: “I can’t wait to see how these emerging STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] leaders will shape the future.
The agency did not respond NatureRequests for changes to the program or applications were returned without review. On its website, the NSF states that “the number of applications returned without review this year has not changed significantly from last year.”
The winners
Nearly 14,000 young researchers applied for a GRFP 2026 award, submitting a research plan and personal statement which were reviewed by an independent panel of researchers. Typically, only about one in six applicants receive one of the prestigious scholarships.
In addition to covering tuition fees, the scholarships come with an annual stipend of US$37,000 for three years. Since 1952, when GRFP was established, it has supported more than 70,000 researchers, and at least 40 of them have received a Nobel Prize.
After rumors swirled that the Trump administration would seek a massive cut to the NSF’s roughly $9 billion budget for fiscal year 2026, in April of last year the agency cut in half the roughly 2,000 GRFP awards usually given out. However, a few months later, 500 awards were added – mostly in areas where the Trump administration wants the US to be a world leader, including artificial intelligence and quantum science – bringing the total to 1,500.
In February this year, NSF leaders announced at board meeting that they intended to reshape the agency to fund more research into quantum science and AI, which the recently announced awards reflect. Fifty-three of the latest GRFP awards are listed in the quantum science category, an increase of 39% from the previous year, and 103 are listed in the AI or machine learning category, an increase of 17%.
Meanwhile, research areas funded by the agency’s Engineering Directorate saw the largest increase in the number of GRFP awardees in 2026, from 406 (or 27% of the total) last year to 914 (or 35% of the total) this year.
But gains have also been made in other areas. Research funded by the Biological Sciences Branch has rebounded from 214 grantees (or 14% of the total) last year to 486 (or 19% of the total) this year. Many researchers were particularly concerned about the biological sciences, given NSF’s shift toward quantum and AI. With the exception of 2025, applicants in the biological sciences have received between 21% and 27% of GRFP grants over the past decade.
After the awards were announced on Sunday, many winners from the record cohort took to the internet to celebrate. “Beyond grateful and still in disbelief,” said Lena Kemmelmeier, a psychology doctoral student at the University of California, San Diego, on the Bluesky social media platform. “Thank you to my wonderful lab mates.”
Another student, anonymous post on social media platform Redditwhere many GRFP candidates commiserated, shared their excitement: “I’m a first-generation PhD student and this is a huge accomplishment for me!! I’m in tears in the middle of writing this and my hands are shaking!”
This article is reproduced with permission and has been published for the first time April 14, 2026.
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