§19211 Early-career Research Fellowship Program

Summary

Allows the National Science Foundation Director to start a two-year pilot fellowship that gives awards to highly qualified early-career researchers to run an independent research project at a college, university, or participating federal research facility they choose, for up to two years. The Director must pick recipients who are U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or lawful permanent residents. The program must reach out to people across the country, to groups underrepresented in STEM, and to a range of schools, including historically Black colleges and universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, minority-serving institutions, colleges not in the top 50 for annual federal research funding, and EPSCoR institutions. Applicants connected to those kinds of schools get special priority. Each fellow must send the NSF a report within 180 days after the pilot ends describing how they used the award money. Within 90 days after the second year ends, the NSF Director must send Congress a report that summarizes fund use and the pilot’s impact, gives statistics on awardees by race, ethnicity, sex, geography, age, years since their doctoral degree, and institution type, and, if the pilot worked, includes a plan to make it permanent.