The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. NSF was established in 1950 by Congress to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, and secure the national defense.
The American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act directed NSF to create a program leveraging the hiring of foreign workers on H-1B visas to address U.S. long-term workforce needs, particularly in technology-intensive sectors. The Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, stemming from this mandate, aims to support academically talented, low-income students to pursue and succeed in high-demand STEM fields. By providing scholarships and fostering educational initiatives, the S-STEM program seeks to increase the retention, graduation, and preparation of students for the American innovation economy. This comprehensive approach not only addresses financial barriers through scholarships but also incorporates evidence-based strategies to enhance student recruitment, retention, success, and graduation within STEM disciplines. Furthermore, it encourages wide-ranging collaborations to investigate and remove obstacles to low-income students' academic success and social mobility, focusing on fields with critical national needs like quantum computing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and data science. Funding varies across different tracks, aiming to build institutional capacity, implement programs at single institutions, or enable inter-institutional consortia, with awards ranging up to $5,000,000 depending on the project's scope.