Not later than 120 days after August 9, 2022, the Director shall enter into an agreement with a qualified independent organization to evaluate the effectiveness of the postdoctoral mentoring plan requirement for improving mentoring for Foundation-supported postdoctoral researchers.
The Director shall make awards, on a competitive basis, to institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations (or consortia of such institutions or organizations) to develop innovative approaches for facilitating career exploration of academic and nonacademic career options and for providing opportunity-broadening experiences, including work-integrated opportunities, for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars that can then be considered, adopted, or adapted by other institutions and to carry out research on the impact and outcomes of such activities.
The Director shall require that annual project reports for awards that support graduate students and postdoctoral scholars include certification by the principal investigator that each graduate student and postdoctoral scholar receiving substantial support from such award, as determined by [1] has developed and annually updated an individual development plan to map educational goals, career exploration, and professional development.
The Director shall carry out a five-year pilot initiative to award up to 2,500 administrative supplements of up to $2,000 to existing research awards annually, on a competitive basis, to support professional development experiences for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who receive a substantial portion of their support under such award, as determined by the Director. Not more than 10 percent of supplements awarded under this subparagraph [2] may be used to support professional development experiences for postdoctoral researchers.
It is the sense of Congress that the Foundation should increase the number of new graduate research fellows supported annually over the next 5 years to no fewer than 3,000 fellows.
The Director shall ensure that students pursuing master’s degrees and doctoral degrees in fields relating to cybersecurity are eligible to apply for scholarships and graduate fellowships under the Graduate Research Fellowship Program under section 1869 of this title.
Not later than 1 year after August 9, 2022, the Director shall publish the results of the evaluation carried out under paragraph (1), including a recommendation for the appropriate balance between fellowships, traineeships, and other funding models.
In this subsection, the term “executive agency” has the meaning given the term “Executive agency” in section 105 of title 5.
Upon submitting the report required in paragraph (2), the Director, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the heads of other agencies with appropriate scientific knowledge, is authorized to establish a Federal artificial intelligence scholarship-for-service program (referred to in this section as the Federal AI Scholarship-for-Service Program) to recruit and train artificial intelligence professionals to lead and support the application of artificial intelligence to the missions of Federal, State, local, and Tribal governments.
Each scholarship under paragraph (5) shall be in an amount that covers the student’s tuition and fees at the institution for not more than 3 years and provides the student with an additional stipend.
Notwithstanding any provision of chapter 33 of title 5, governing appointments in the competitive service, an executive agency may appoint an individual who has completed the eligible degree program for which a scholarship was awarded to a position in the excepted service in the executive agency.
Except as provided in subparagraph (D), upon fulfillment of the service term, an employee appointed under subparagraph (A) may be converted noncompetitively to term, career-conditional, or career appointment.
An executive agency may noncompetitively convert a term employee appointed under subparagraph (B) to a career-conditional or career appointment before the term appointment expires.
An executive agency may decline to make the noncompetitive conversion or appointment under subparagraph (B) for cause.
As a condition of receiving a scholarship under this section, a recipient shall agree to provide the qualified institution of higher education with annual verifiable documentation of post-award employment and up-to-date contact information.
Except as provided in subparagraph (C), any repayment under this subsection shall be returned to the Treasury of the United States.
A qualified institution of higher education may retain a percentage of any repayment the institution collects under this subsection to defray administrative costs associated with the collection. The Director shall establish a fixed percentage that will apply to all eligible entities, and may update this percentage as needed, in the determination of the Director.
The Director may provide for the partial or total waiver or suspension of any service or payment obligation by an individual under this section whenever compliance by the individual with the obligation is impossible or would involve extreme hardship to the individual, or if enforcement of such obligation with respect to the individual would be unconscionable.
The Director, in coordination with the Office of Personnel Management, shall submit, not less frequently than once every 3 years, to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate, the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the House of Representatives a report, including the results of the evaluation under subparagraph (A) and any recent statistics regarding the size, composition, and educational requirements of the Federal AI workforce.