NSF shrinks support for social sciences in prestigious graduate fellowship program

From ScienceMag:

U.S. students hoping to earn a Ph.D. in political science, public policy, cultural anthropology, or science education will no longer be eligible for a prestigious fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the agency revealed yesterday. Advocates for the social sciences believe NSF’s decision to drop those fields from its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is part of a broader effort to end funding for the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, underscored by the agency’s decision earlier this year to eliminate its SBE directorate.

“SBE is disappearing before our eyes,” says Wendy Naus, executive director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations, citing the changes in GRFP eligibility as the latest example. The withdrawal of NSF support for the social sciences could trigger departmental closings at major U.S. universities, she predicts, as NSF is the chief source of research support for many disciplines.

“NSF routinely reviews fields of study and makes updates based on changes in the scientific landscape and agency priorities,” an agency spokesperson said in response to a query about the revised list of eligible fields.

The new GRFP rules are included in an NSF solicitation posted yesterday. The announcement also indicates the number of fellows supported will drop sharply in 2027, to 1500. The size of each class has fluctuated widely in recent years: The number stood at 2031 in 2024 before dipping to 1500 in 2025 and then rising to 2597 this year.

The solicitation says NSF expects to spend $159 million on the 2027 class of fellows, who will receive 3 years of graduate support with an annual stipend of $37,000 and $16,000 in tuition reimbursement to their university. Over the years, the program has supported 50 Nobel Prize winners.

Those who follow GRFP say its reduced scope for 2027 is unprecedented. The seven areas being dropped accounted for 17% of all the social science fellows funded in the past 5 years, according to data compiled by Gisèle Muller-Parker, former director of the program. NSF is still offering fellowships in other subfields, including economics, archaeology, geography, and linguistics.

Students in the social sciences have been eligible since 1956, Muller-Parker notes, 4 years after NSF launched the program. Last year there were 124 social science fellows, down from a 5-year high of 152 in 2023.

One field—the history and philosophy of science—was eliminated last year, Muller-Parker adds. This year’s solicitation also removes science, technology, engineering, and math education and learning research as one of the 10 major fields supported by GRFP, further skewing the program toward engineering and hard sciences.

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