Host Institution Employment Policy FAQ
This FAQ on changes to the NHFP Host Institution Employment Policy will be updated as we receive additional questions.
Policy questions and answers
Through this change in policy we intend to ensure that all NHFP fellows will be given the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that full-time employees already have.
At present, NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) fellows can be either employee or stipendiary fellows. Employee fellows are, as the name suggests, employees of their host institutions and receive the full employee benefit package of their host institution. While the NHFP does not pay overhead to the host institution, it does fully reimburse the host institution for the cost of the employee benefits package. Stipendiary fellows, on the other hand, are not employees of their hosts. While they receive the same salary as employee fellows, they receive no benefits, except for health care, which they, or their host institution, arrange for separately and for which they or their host institution is reimbursed. However, they do not receive sick pay, annual leave, or parental/family leave. Thus, while an employee fellow could take parental leave after the birth of a child, and then extend their fellowship by the amount of leave they took, a stipendiary fellow has no such option. Furthermore, the income a stipendiary fellow receives is typically not considered to be earned income by their state or the Federal Government. As a result, not only do they not have an institutional retirement plan they can join, they may lose government benefits such as social security and unemployment insurance. However, stipendiary fellows do not pay social security taxes and may have more leave flexibility than employee fellows. Additionally, whether an individual is an employee or stipendiary fellow can affect the visas for which they are eligible. Thus which model is preferable will depend on the specific circumstances and desires of the fellow, but for the majority of fellows the employment model is the better option.
Unfortunately not. A number of host institutions do not allow NHFP fellows to choose the employee model. At the same time, most of these institutions hire postdoctoral fellows using funds from grants provided to them by external funding agencies. hile the NHFP is a fellowship, it is structured like a grant to the faculty contact and the host institution. Officially, the responsible faculty member for the grant is the faculty contact and the fellow is paid through that grant. Therefore, host institutions that take and use grant funds to hire postdocs as employees should, in general, be able to make NHFP fellows employees as well. However, a number do not. Because of the usual disparity in benefits, noted above, between the employee and stipendiary models, this is not a situation that is good for the program or the fellows.
In general, stipendiary fellows don’t have any defined leave. Instead they work on a schedule agreed upon with their faculty advisor. This may give them greater flexibility in their schedules, but it also means that if they take time off for parental leave, their fellowship would not be extended by an equivalent amount of time, as there are no benefits to pay for the extension. As an employee, parental leave may be available, but leave is often accumulated over time, so employees may not be able to take sufficient parental leave soon after joining a new institution. In contrast, stipendiary fellows only need to arrange leave with their advisor. For this and other reasons, we encourage institutions to allow NHFP fellows to take a stipendiary position if that is what they prefer.
Fellows already at an institution that will not offer employee status may remain at that institution as stipendiary fellows, or may request a transfer to another institution that does offer employee status following the standard rules for transfer (see the NHFP Budget and Policy Guidelines).
The new policy will require all fellows to be offered employee status. It does not require institutions to also offer stipendiary status; however, the NHFP does encourage institutions to offer both. While employee status is advantageous for the majority of fellows, there are definitely cases where stipendiary status will better match the needs of the fellow.
The NHFP asks potential host institutions to let us know whether they will be able to comply with the policy. If a prospective fellow does not see their preferred host institution on the list, we recommend they contact the institution and ask them to send a note to the NHFP letting us know that they will be able to host fellows under the policies of the NHFP. As soon as we hear from an institution that they can comply, we will update our public list to reflect this.