NSF GRFP (Graduate Research Fellowship Program)

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is a competitively awarded, individually-held fellowship funding three years of graduate study and research (within a five-year eligibility window) for early-career graduate students -- and eligible undergraduate seniors applying in advance -- pursuing full-time, research-based STEM or STEM-education master's or doctoral study. It provides a $37,000 annual stipend to the fellow plus a separate $16,000 Cost of Education allowance paid to the fellow's institution. Eligibility is restricted to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, and U.S. permanent residents; applicants must not already hold a doctoral or equivalent terminal degree.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 18 Jul 2026

Worked examples

Is an instance

A physics student in their first semester of a PhD program applies for and is awarded a GRFP fellowship -- a three-year, individually-held stipend plus cost-of-education allowance, usable within a five-year window, that belongs to the student and is unaffected if they later transfer graduate programs.

Is an instance

An undergraduate senior majoring in computer science applies for GRFP the fall before starting a research-based master's program, using their eligibility as a bachelor's degree holder rather than waiting until they are enrolled as a graduate student.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

An undergraduate spending a summer doing mentored lab research through an NSF REU Site is not a GRFP fellow -- REU funds a short-term undergraduate experience held institutionally, not an individually-held multi-year graduate fellowship.

Not an instance

A graduate student paid a stipend directly from their advisor's NSF R01-equivalent grant is not a GRFP fellow, even if their duties are indistinguishable from a GRFP recipient's -- GRFP is defined by being individually competed and held by the student, not by the nature of the research performed.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is the U.S. National Science Foundation’s flagship individually-held graduate fellowship: a competitively awarded package of three years of support, usable within a five-year eligibility window, for early-career graduate students pursuing full-time, research-based master’s or doctoral study in NSF-supported STEM fields, including STEM education. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious graduate fellowships in the United States, and the largest example in NSF’s portfolio of the general research fellowship mechanism — individually competed, individually held by the student rather than a PI’s grant, and funding a defined program of graduate study rather than an ongoing role.

Award structure

Each GRFP fellowship provides, per fellowship year used: a $37,000 annual stipend paid to the fellow, plus a separate $16,000 Cost of Education allowance paid to the fellow’s graduate degree-granting institution to cover tuition and mandatory fees — a total award value of roughly $159,000 over three fellowship years. The stipend and allowance are NSF-wide figures set in the current program solicitation (NSF 25-547) and are periodically adjusted; grants and fellowships offices should confirm the current-year figures against the live solicitation rather than treating a specific dollar amount as permanently fixed.

Fellows select three fellowship years to use within a five-year eligibility period, which gives some flexibility to defer a year (for example, around a leave of absence) without losing the award. The fellowship is portable: it belongs to the student, not to any single mentor’s grant, and moves with the fellow if they change graduate institutions within program rules.

Eligibility

Citizenship/residency: applicants must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or U.S. permanent residents.
Career stage: GRFP targets early-career graduate students. An applicant must have completed no more than a limited amount of graduate study in their current degree program at the time of application (the exact cutoff — stated in the solicitation as a maximum number of terms of full-time graduate study completed) — and undergraduate seniors are explicitly encouraged to apply before starting graduate school. Applicants who already hold a doctoral or equivalent terminal degree are generally ineligible, subject to a narrow return-to-study exception described in the solicitation.
Field of study: the degree program must be a full-time, research-based master’s or doctoral program in an NSF-supported STEM field, including STEM education; NSF publishes an eligible fields-of-study list covering the natural sciences, engineering, computer and information science, mathematics, psychology, social sciences, and STEM education research, among others.
Frequency: an individual may apply to GRFP only a limited number of times across their academic career (as an undergraduate senior/bachelor’s degree holder, and once as an early-stage graduate student) — the exact application-count limits are set in the current solicitation.

Application components

A GRFP application is built around two written statements plus supporting materials submitted through NSF’s Research.gov system:

A Personal, Relevant Background, and Future Goals Statement, describing the applicant’s background, broader impacts potential, and career goals.
A Graduate Research Plan Statement, describing the proposed research and its intellectual merit and broader impacts.
Three letters of reference from individuals familiar with the applicant’s qualifications, submitted directly by the referees.
Academic transcripts and standard applicant identifying/demographic information.

Like all NSF proposals and fellowship applications, GRFP applications are evaluated against NSF’s two agency-wide merit review criteria — Intellectual Merit (the potential to advance knowledge) and Broader Impacts (the potential to benefit society and contribute to specific, desired societal outcomes) — applied here to the applicant and their proposed graduate research rather than to a funded project.

How GRFP differs from NSF REU

GRFP is routinely confused with NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, but the two sit at different points in a researcher’s career and have an entirely different funding structure:

Who holds the award. GRFP is applied for and held by the individual graduate student. REU is never held by a student individually — it is held by an institution (an REU Site) or attached to an existing PI’s grant (an REU Supplement).
Career stage. GRFP funds graduate students (with undergraduate seniors eligible to apply in advance of starting graduate school). REU funds undergraduates specifically, for a short-term mentored research experience, typically an 8-10 week summer program.
Duration and structure. GRFP provides three years of individually-held support over a five-year window. REU provides a single defined short-term experience per participating undergraduate, run by a Site or Supplement that itself may span multiple years and multiple student cohorts.

For the general funding-mechanism definition that both GRFP and REU sit underneath — along with postdoctoral and senior-career fellowships such as F32, Guggenheim, and ACLS — see CASRAI’s research fellowship entry.

Why it matters for research administration

Because a GRFP award is held by the student rather than routed through a PI’s grant, it typically does not pass through a sponsored-programs office the way an R01 or NSF standard grant does — it is more often tracked by a graduate school, fellowships office, or financial aid office, with the Cost of Education allowance paid directly to the institution rather than negotiated as indirect costs. Research administrators supporting a department with GRFP fellows should know that GRFP funding does not carry a negotiated F&A/indirect-cost rate the way a PI-held grant does; the Cost of Education allowance is a fixed, solicitation-set amount instead. Institutions also use GRFP holders as a recruiting and retention signal — many departments track how many incoming or continuing graduate students hold or are nominated for GRFP as part of graduate admissions and funding planning.

References

National Science Foundation, Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) — nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/grfp-nsf-graduate-research-fellowship-program
NSF 25-547, GRFP Program Solicitation
NSF GRFP applicant resource site — nsfgrfp.org

Use in your systems

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Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

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