What does "award" exactly mean?

National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellowship
Awards;
- to give by judicial decree or after careful consideration
- to confer or bestow as being deserved or merited or needed.
In other words the student was given a fellowship - scholarship - because he earned the acknowledgement.
An award is given in sports because an athelete wins a competition. In acedemics they don't give a gold medal/ribbons/trophies. Students are awarded money or placement in a good schools for working hard, excelling and showing themselves to be worthy of the investment. Future prospects. It costs a lot to go to school and good students are helped financally.

The Nobel Prize is an award for great acheivements.

Oristar, in your example about "fruits of his research" you might be looking for the word reward. The Nobel Prize is awarded to those whose work deserves, in the estimation of the Nobel committee, a reward. Not sure, otherwise, what you mean.

Ah thanks. but what I wanted to know is the exact meaning of the word "award" in that context.
I doubt that "award" in the context may easily cause misunderstanding. For example, you might think the award is like the award of Nobel Prize, but actually it may be not, it is just a help to some postdoctor for their hard work, not for their achievement.

Oristar,

The verb 'award' can sometimes mean something so simple as to "grant" or "give".

It's not always a prestigious title, it can be something mundane:

"I was awarded the contract."

It doesn't always even have to be coveted*, though that is usually an implication.

*"He was awarded the dubious honor of the group's 'most flatulant man'."