The National Science Foundation (NSF) needs YOU to help create the Big Ideas of the future!
The NSF 2026 Idea Machine is a competition to help set the U.S. agenda for fundamental research in science and engineering. Participants can earn prizes and receive public recognition by suggesting the pressing research questions that need to be answered in the coming decade, the next set of “Big Ideas” for future investment by the NSF. It’s an opportunity for researchers, the public and other interested stakeholders to contribute to NSF’s mission to support basic research and enable new discoveries that drive the U.S. economy, enhance national security and advance knowledge to sustain the country’s global leadership in science and engineering.
What is a “Big Idea”?
- A Big Idea is a compelling research challenge in fundamental STEM or STEM education that is large in scope, innovative in character, and requires a long-term commitment (i.e., 10 years or more) to address.
- It has (a) worthwhile objective(s), is ambitious and challenging and may require a paradigm shift in our thinking.
- It requires high risk/high reward, transformative exploration at the frontiers of research in science, engineering, and STEM learning.
- It will attract creative contributions from many researchers.
- It crosses traditional scientific boundaries, fills recognized gaps, or takes advantage of new opportunities, and it does not fit within the current programs of any particular NSF directorate or division.
- Progress toward addressing it would have significant societal and scientific impact that would benefit many stakeholders, both inside and outside the research community.
- Some of the other research Big Ideas that NSF is currently pursuing are Harnessing the Data Revolution, Understanding the Rules of Life: Predicting Phenotype, The Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier, Navigating the New Arctic, Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics, and The Quantum Leap: Leading the Next Quantum Revolution.
NSF is looking for exciting ideas for future themes in fundamental science, engineering, and education research, that go beyond the existing portfolio.
The application opens tomorrow, August 31st. Submit your idea at the NSF 2026 Idea Machine website by October 26th, 2018.
