On April 12th, more than 2,500 prospective graduate students nationwide received a dose of very good news. The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the 2026 cohort of awardees in its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). The GRFP is the flagship mechanism to support the next-generation of talented researchers working across a broad portfolio of use-inspired basic research. This year constitutes the largest single-year cohort on record – a significant boost over last year’s decision to restrict the scope of the program to 1,500 awardees in total.
In the past, scientists, advocacy groups, and the public may have taken for granted the alignment between public interests and the actions of science agencies. Not so now. Instead, the NSF GRFP announcement should be celebrated as a significant win.
Wins deserve recognition.
But how precisely should we celebrate, and how should we apportion credit?
As a cautionary example, just a few months ago Congress rejected the White House’s FY26 science top line budget numbers on a bipartisan basis. Pres. Trump subsequently signed the FY26 budget into law. In response, the “Science and Technology Action Committee”, whose Co-Chairs include the CEO of AAAS and the CEO of Research!America issued a press release on Feb. 6, 2026 “Thanking President Donald Trump for Signing the Senate Amendment to H.R. 7148.” This type of press release rewards bad faith actions, neglects to thank those responsible for steering top-line budget numbers away from catastrophe, and ignores the worsening crisis in publicly funded science caused by the very person they thank.
Here, I propose a different model: celebrating the GRFP news as a win for early career researchers, a validation of public-facing advocacy in support of NSF’s mission, and a testament to the work of program officers working behind the scenes despite the threats to their careers, severe reductions in force, and reduced independence. Equally importantly, I advocate for interpreting this year’s outcome as a template for advocacy to come: one that combines an articulation of purpose, grassroots campaigns, and (courageous) professionalism to ensure that publicly funded science flourishes.
The rapidly changing landscape of federal funding for graduate work has created new pressures: on students, faculty, departments, and institutions as a whole. In the past, departments have relied on experienced graduate committees to calibrate the number of acceptances based on departmental needs, budgets, and historical acceptance rates. Each acceptance represents an opportunity to train a PhD-level researcher; such training comes with a cost. Aggregating together annual stipends of $35,000-$45,000, tuition waivers, fringe benefits, professional travels, and other expected materials and supply costs, a department must be prepared to invest at least $300,000+ over 5 years as PhD students work their way through classes, qualifying exams, and research.
Supporting graduate students is one of the most meaningful parts of faculty life – culminating, eventually in the successful defense of a dissertation in front of a panel of peer experts. Yes, such training represents a significant financial investment, but it’s far more than that. In many departments, graduate students drive the intellectual core of research advances, social identity, and intellectual exchange. But last year, departmental budget models were turned upside down, leading to reduced first-year enrollment and risks to the continuity of scientific programs.
This is precisely why graduate fellowships are so highly sought after. Each NSF Graduate Research Fellowship provides independence and financial support. Students receive a $37,000 stipend and tuition waiver for three years that they can utilize over a five year period, mixing in departmental and institutional support. Proposals lay out potential directions and fellowship recipients choose what and where to study, and are free to change course. In essence, the NSF is making a bet on people, not projects.
And this year, they made an outsized bet – a stark departure from a year ago.
In Spring 2025, the National Science Foundation announced their newest cohort of NSF GRFP awardees: a scant 1,000 in total. The administration has claimed that it wants to support the next generation of researchers but their actions suggest a different goal. NSF had awarded more than 2,000 Graduate Research Fellowships every year since 2010 – only to slash awards by more than half in a single cycle.
The pushback was public and immediate.
Months later, the administration added another 500 fellowships, albeit restricting awards to a limited number of thematic areas aligned with administration priorities. This is not to take anything away from the additional recipients – but the decision to exclude additional awards focused on the life sciences suggests that decisions were being made from the top-down rather than bottom-up.
This type of narrow means-testing doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, especially not in an agency dedicated to use-driven, basic research. If the US wants to take the lead in Quantum and AI, are we sure the talent pool is found exclusively in students that have openly declared their intent to study those areas? Moreover, is it prudent to invest narrowly in preferred fields? Was it apparent that joint efforts by Sergey Brin and Larry Page to rank connected webpages as part of a digital humanities grant would transform web search and catalyze the founding of Google? Unlikely.
(Of note, Brin, was a NSF GRFP awardee in 1993).
The NSF GRFP program degraded further throughout 2025. The administration delayed the release of the next call for applications, eventually releasing a new solicitation on September 26, 2025 with significant changes, including closing pathways for second year students to apply and eliminating entire fields from eligibility. Again, the response was immediate: an open letter and online petition led by a group of researchers inside and outside of universities drew attention to the capricious changes to a storied program. A month later, in October 2025, Rep. Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Stevens (D-MI) wrote to the Acting Director of NSF, Mr. Brian Stone, urging NSF to change their policies and increase transparency. The potential, downward spiral of the NSF GRFP program and its impact on American leadership in sciences had become a matter of national relevance.
In early 2025, the Trump administration slashed the reimbursement policy for research infrastructure costs by more than half. The decision to slash “indirect costs” was challenged in court – successfully. More than a year later, the Trump administration finally decide to drop the court case, conceding defeat. But, their intentions have not fundamentally changed – the administration has proposed a FY 2027 science budget that includes dramatic cuts to baseline funding for NSF, NIH and other agencies, and proposed to slash (yet again) NIH indirect costs rates to 15%.
Like the battle over research infrastructure costs, the announcement of this year’s NSF GRFP awardees constitutes a major victory for American leadership in science. That victory should not be tallied in the Trump administration’s ledger.
Instead, this past year saw a confluence of actions in support of the NSF GRFP: (i) a rapid response by the research community to capricious changes; (ii) public support by hundreds of early career researchers who were willing to speak up and sign on to a petition demanding a change; (iii) endorsement by representatives in Congress of a need to correct missteps and increase transparency; (iv) elevation of the issue in major science-focused publications (e.g., Nature & CE&N); (v) rapid, social media sharing of the ongoing threat to the next generation of researchers.
There is one more component that isn’t visible and that deserves public recognition.
Beginning in early 2025, the Trump administration has undermined the job security, independence, and programmatic support throughout federal science agencies. NSF has been hit particularly hard. A Washington Post report released on April 19th explores cuts to American science, including data revealing that NSF has lost more than 40% of its workforce in a single year (!!). Far too many expert program managers have lost their jobs and those that are left face increasing demands and shortened timelines to ensure that NSF fulfills its mission to science and the American public.
The historic cohort size would not be possible without the work of professional civil servants working in continued support of NSF’s mission — they deserve our thanks.
But their work is far from done.
The current situation is unsustainable and untenable. New leadership is needed, but we should be careful not to elevate a leader who will become a willing partner in the further degradation of American science. Instead, we need more willing to enter the arena. Like public contests over IDC rates and the NSF GRFP program, further wins in support of American science require coalitions of experienced researchers, early career students and scientists, and elected officials to speak up vigorously in defense of science, scientists, and institutions so that experts continuing to advocate for the NSF GRFP and beyond can do their work, free of political interference.
This combination is a template for future work and our best chance for more wins.
And, when there are wins, it is essential to give credit where credit is due.
If so, we might just strengthen coalitions and rack up some more wins in the process.
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