NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship

There is no single, unified ‘NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship’ at the U.S. National Science Foundation. Unlike the National Institutes of Health, which centers most individual postdoctoral support on one activity code (the F32 NIH Postdoctoral Individual NRSA Fellowship), NSF distributes postdoctoral funding across a family of separately named, directorate- or division-run competitions. Each has its own NSF publication number, solicitation text, eligibility rules, term length, and stipend structure. A researcher searching for ‘the NSF postdoctoral fellowship’ needs to first identify which directorate-level program actually matches their field and career stage.

NSF’s current directorate-specific postdoctoral fellowship programs

As of the most recent competition cycles, NSF’s major individually held postdoctoral fellowship programs include:

• Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB) — run by the Biological Sciences Directorate (solicitation NSF 26-504). Funds a 24-month term at $110,000 per year ($85,000 stipend plus a $25,000 research and training allowance), portable to a host institution of the fellow’s choosing.
• Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MPS-Ascend) — funds up to $70,000 per year in stipend plus a $30,000 fellowship allowance, targeted at broadening participation among groups historically underrepresented in mathematical and physical sciences fields.
• Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MSPRF) — also run by the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, offering fellows a choice between a Research Fellowship (research only, at a host institution) and a Research Instructorship track that combines research with teaching.
• SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) — run by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, with two tracks: Fundamental Research (SPRF-FR) and Broadening Participation (SPRF-BP).
• NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships (AAPF) and Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (AGS-PF) — discipline-specific programs within the Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Geosciences directorates respectively; AGS-PF funds a $70,000 stipend plus a $30,000 allowance.
• An Engineering Directorate postdoctoral fellowship — a two-year award providing a stipend and travel allowance for engineering researchers.
• Innovative Postdoctoral Entrepreneurial Research Fellowship (I-PERF) — places fellows at an approved host company rather than an academic institution, with a $78,000 annual stipend plus relocation assistance and professional-development support.

NSF maintains a consolidated list of current postdoctoral funding opportunities on its own site, since directorates periodically retire, rename, or reissue individual solicitations (the PRFB solicitation number itself, for example, has advanced from NSF 24-593 to NSF 26-504 across recent cycles) — always confirm the live solicitation number and deadline against nsf.gov rather than assuming a prior cycle’s details still apply.

What these programs share structurally

Despite the differences in field, eligibility, and dollar amounts, NSF’s postdoctoral fellowship programs share a common shape that distinguishes them from a postdoc funded as grant-supported staff:

• Individually held and individually competed. The fellow, not the host institution or a principal investigator’s grant, is the named recipient. This mirrors the same individual-vs-institutional distinction covered on CASRAI’s general postdoctoral fellowship entry.
• A fixed term, typically two years. Most current programs fund 24 months of support, occasionally with an option to extend into a third year depending on the solicitation.
• A stipend plus a separate research and training (or fellowship) allowance. NSF programs consistently itemize the award into a personal stipend and a distinct allowance intended for research costs, travel, and training rather than folding everything into one lump salary figure.
• Portability. Fellows generally choose their own host lab or institution, subject to program rules, rather than being assigned one.

Why the distinction matters for research administration

Because NSF postdoctoral funding is split across directorate-specific solicitations rather than one program, research administrators supporting an applicant need to confirm which specific NSF solicitation applies to the proposed field before treating budget rules, eligibility windows, or allowable-cost guidance from one program (say, PRFB) as applicable to another (say, MPS-Ascend or SPRF) — the NSF PAPPG sets NSF-wide baseline policy, but individual fellowship solicitations layer their own eligibility and budget rules on top of it. The same applies to biosketch preparation: NSF fellowship applicants use the same NSF Biosketch (SciENcv) format required across NSF proposals generally, regardless of which specific postdoctoral program they are applying to.