The NST Fellowship is Bangladesh’s national funding mechanism for MS, MPhil, PhD, and postdoctoral research, administered by the Science and Technology Fellowship Trust (STFT) under the Ministry of Science and Technology. STFT was renamed from the Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust in March 2025 by government ordinance; both names refer to the same fellowship program.
What the Science and Technology Fellowship Trust (STFT) is
STFT is a Bangladesh government-funded trust, operating under the Ministry of Science and Technology, that administers fellowship funding for science and technology education and research. It was established through the passage of the Bangabandhu Science & Technology Trust Bill, 2016, by the Parliament of Bangladesh on 16 February 2016, introduced by the then Minister of Science and Technology, Yafes Osman. The trust is governed by a trustee board headed by a minister or state minister, and its office sits at the National Science and Technology Complex (NSTC) in Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka.
STFT does not itself invent the fellowship it administers. The NST Fellowship program predates the trust by decades — it was introduced from the 1977–78 financial year as a direct Ministry of Science and Technology scheme for MS, MPhil, PhD, and postdoctoral researchers at public universities and research institutions. STFT’s 2016 creation consolidated administration of that long-running fellowship (and related science-and-technology funding) under a dedicated trust structure rather than leaving it inside general ministry operations.
The March 2025 name change
Until March 2025, the organization was named the Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust. On 20 March 2025, Bangladesh’s interim government — formed after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation amid the July–August 2024 unrest — enacted an ordinance renaming it to the Science and Technology Fellowship Trust, dropping the “Bangabandhu” prefix along with a broader set of renamings of state institutions carrying that eponym. The trust’s official website (stft.gov.bd) and its Ministry of Science and Technology parent site both use the current name and confirm the trust still operates under the same ministry, with the same NST Fellowship mandate, just without the earlier honorific in its title.
This matters operationally for anyone citing or cross-referencing the organization: institutional partnership agreements, CVs, sponsor-acknowledgment text, and older funding-body directories dated before March 2025 will likely still show “Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust.” Both names refer to the same legal entity and the same fellowship program — research administrators verifying a Bangladeshi researcher’s funding history should treat the two names as equivalent rather than assuming a discrepancy.
The NST Fellowship: what it funds
The National Science and Technology (NST) Fellowship supports Bangladeshi citizens pursuing higher research degrees in science and technology fields. Fellowship notifications are issued for each Bangladeshi fiscal year (July–June) and, per STFT’s own published notices, cover both in-country and abroad tracks (the official notices are titled “দেশে-বিদেশে,” literally “in the country, abroad”). Based on the program’s stated scope, categories include:
- MS/MPhil-level fellowships — for master’s and MPhil researchers at public universities and research institutions.
- PhD fellowships — for doctoral researchers, both at Bangladeshi public institutions and, for the overseas track, at eligible foreign universities.
- Postdoctoral fellowships — for researchers who have already completed a doctorate, consistent with the program’s original 1977–78 mandate covering MS, MPhil, PhD, and postdoctoral levels.
For the overseas track specifically, publicly available fellowship notices have required applicants to hold a final offer letter from a university ranked within a defined band (historically the top 400) of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, alongside English-proficiency thresholds. Exact rankings bands, stipend amounts, and category mixes vary by fiscal-year notification — administrators advising an applicant should always confirm the current cycle’s specific figures against the live notice rather than a prior year’s, since STFT reissues detailed terms annually.
Eligibility and how to apply
Eligibility criteria published in STFT/Ministry notices have included:
- Citizenship: applicants must be Bangladeshi citizens.
- Age limits: historically up to 35 years for MS/MPhil-level applicants and up to 42 years for PhD applicants, though administrators should verify the limit stated in the current fiscal year’s notice rather than assume it is fixed permanently.
- Academic standing: a genuine, ongoing or admitted research program at a recognized public university or research institution (in-country track) or a secured offer at an eligible ranked institution (overseas track).
Applications are submitted through the Ministry of Science and Technology’s online grant portal at grant.most.gov.bd, under the STFT fellowship service, alongside a published checklist and guidelines document for the relevant fiscal year. Because the portal, checklist, and eligibility thresholds are all reissued per cycle, the only reliable source for a live application window is STFT’s own site (stft.gov.bd) or the Ministry’s NST Fellowship page — third-party scholarship-aggregator sites frequently republish prior-year terms without updating them.
How STFT fits into Bangladesh’s research funding landscape
STFT/NST is a fellowship mechanism for individual researchers rather than a general research-project grant body — its closest functional counterparts elsewhere in South Asia are single-country funding and fellowship trusts rather than broad research councils. Within Bangladesh, it sits alongside the University Grants Commission (UGC), which oversees higher-education institutions more broadly, and various discipline-specific research councils (agriculture, medical research, atomic energy) that fund project-based research rather than individual training fellowships. For a research administrator mapping South Asian funding infrastructure, STFT/NST is comparable in function — a national fellowship trust for graduate and postdoctoral researchers in science and technology fields — to Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) funding schemes and Sri Lanka’s National Science Foundation (NSF), though each country’s specific mechanism, eligibility rules, and governing legislation differ and should not be assumed interchangeable.
For international collaborators and research administrators
A few practical points for anyone outside Bangladesh working with an NST Fellowship holder or applicant:
- Funder acknowledgment text in co-authored publications or partnership documentation should use the current legal name, Science and Technology Fellowship Trust (STFT), for anything dated after March 2025, while treating “Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust” in earlier-dated material as the same entity, not an error.
- Overseas-track applicants negotiating admission or a co-supervision arrangement at a foreign institution should confirm current ranking-band and English-proficiency requirements directly against that fiscal year’s STFT notice before finalizing an offer letter, since those requirements are a condition of the fellowship, not just of the host institution’s own admissions process.
- Due-diligence on funding history: because STFT centralizes NST Fellowship administration, institutions verifying a Bangladeshi researcher’s funding history for compliance, hiring, or grant-eligibility purposes have a single authoritative point of confirmation (STFT itself) rather than needing to check multiple disbursing bodies.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Science and Technology Fellowship Trust (STFT) the same organization as the Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust?
Yes. On 20 March 2025, Bangladesh’s interim government renamed the Bangabandhu Science and Technology Fellowship Trust to the Science and Technology Fellowship Trust by ordinance. It is the same legal entity, under the same Ministry of Science and Technology, administering the same NST Fellowship program.
What does the NST Fellowship fund?
It funds MS/MPhil, PhD, and postdoctoral research by Bangladeshi citizens, both at public institutions within Bangladesh and, for eligible applicants with an offer at a sufficiently ranked foreign university, abroad. The program dates back to Bangladesh’s 1977–78 fiscal year and has been administered by STFT since the trust’s creation in 2016.
Who administers the NST Fellowship?
The Science and Technology Fellowship Trust (STFT), operating under Bangladesh’s Ministry of Science and Technology, administers the fellowship’s application process, selection, and disbursement. Applications go through the Ministry’s online grant portal.
Where can applicants find the current fellowship notice and deadlines?
Directly on STFT’s official site (stft.gov.bd) or the Ministry of Science and Technology’s NST Fellowship page — both publish the current fiscal year’s notice, checklist, and guidelines. Because terms (age limits, ranking bands, stipend figures) are reissued annually, a prior year’s notice or a third-party scholarship-listing site should not be treated as current.
This guide reflects publicly available information from STFT’s official site, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and corroborating secondary sources as of mid-2026. Specific stipend amounts, current-cycle deadlines, and exact eligibility figures change by fiscal-year notification — always confirm against STFT’s live notice before advising an applicant or institution.
