NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships Award Increase

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is pleased to announce that the annual amount for the Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships (AAPF) award will be increased starting in fiscal year 2017 (FY2017). The new annual NSF AAPF award of $100,000 — which includes a stipend of $69,000 and a fellowship allowance of $31,000 — will be about 11% larger than the current award of $89,000, which was set in FY2012. This increase will make the NSF AAPF award comparable to other prize postdoctoral fellowships. NSF anticipates that the increased support will allow the Fellows to meet higher costs of living and to bolster activities that will enhance their research and education programs, such as hiring students to assist with research, traveling to remote locations to reach underserved communities, and other activities, for which costs have risen significantly within the past five years. Current Fellows continuing into the second and third years of their fellowship tenures in FY2017 will also receive the higher award amount effective with each annual funding increment that begins after the start of FY2017.

The revised NSF AAPF program solicitation reflecting the increased award amount was issued on 30 June 2016, and is available as Program Solicitation NSF 16-575. The FY2017 deadline for the receipt of NSF AAPF proposals is 12 October 2016 at 5:00 pm in the proposer’s local time zone. In subsequent years, the deadline will be on the second Wednesday in October.