42 U.S.C. § 18999 — Programs to address the STEM workforce

(a) In general. The Director must issue undergraduate scholarships, including at community colleges, along with graduate fellowships and traineeships, postdoctoral awards, and other awards as needed, to close gaps in the STEM workforce. This includes programs that recruit, keep, and move students toward a bachelor's degree in a STEM subject while they are still in high school, such as through partnerships with state education agencies. (b) Postdoctoral professional development. The Director must encourage new approaches to postdoctoral professional development, support a diverse STEM workforce, and study how well these approaches work. To do this, the Director may use postdoctoral awards from subsection (a), or awards leveraged under subsection (d)(1), to fund fellowships or temporary rotational postings lasting no more than two years. These fellowships or postings must go to people who earned a doctoral degree within the past five years, and the work must be research at a federal, state, local, or Tribal government research facility. (c) Direct hire authority. (1) In general: The head of any federal agency may hire a qualified candidate described in paragraph (2) directly into a competitive-service job, skipping most of the usual civil service hiring rules (though not sections 3303 and 3328 of title 5), as long as the candidate meets the Office of Personnel Management's qualification standards for that job. (2) Fellowship or temporary rotational posting: This direct-hire power applies to a former recipient of an award under subsection (b) who earned a doctoral degree in a STEM field and successfully completed a fellowship or rotational posting at a federal agency. (3) Limitation: The agency must use this direct-hire power for a specific candidate within two years after that candidate finished the fellowship or posting. (d) Existing programs. In doing this work, the Director may use existing programs, including ones that offer: postdoctoral awards; graduate fellowships and traineeships, including the NSF Research Traineeships program and the Graduate Research Fellowship Program; scholarships, research experiences, and internships—including scholarships for community college students and research experiences and internships under sections 1862p–5, 1862p–6, and 1862p–7 of this title; and awards to colleges to fund innovation in undergraduate and graduate education, build more educational capacity, create new or specialized programs of study, and evaluate how well those programs work.