What This List Covers
NSF's summer deadlines cluster tightly: eleven due dates in July 2026 and twelve in August. The biggest one, the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER), lands July 22 and comes once a year. Miss it and the next chance is July 2027. This article is a deadline list, not an agency overview. For what changed at NSF in 2025 and 2026 — the $8.75 billion appropriation, the DOGE grant terminations, the merit review overhaul — see our NSF grants guide. Everything below answers the practical question: what can you still apply for this cycle, and when is it due. Every entry was checked on June 9, 2026 against our database, which tracked 11,506 live funding opportunities that day, and spot-verified against the posted solicitation on nsf.gov. Two caveats. First, NSF revises solicitations, and the agency has been through an unusually turbulent eighteen months, so confirm the date on the linked nsf.gov page before you plan a submission around it. Second, several of these dates are target dates rather than hard deadlines. The distinction matters and gets its own section below. Search all National Science Foundation opportunities
July 2026: Eleven Due Dates
Each entry links to the official posting. Award figures come from the posted solicitations as recorded in our database; where no figure appears, the solicitation does not state one. July 1 — Archaeology Program Senior Research Awards. Anthropologically relevant archaeological research, led by PIs with a PhD or equivalent research experience. $6 million in total program funding. July 9 — HBCU Excellence in Research (HBCU-EiR). Research capacity building at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. July 9 is the required letter of intent, not the full proposal deadline: skip the LOI and you cannot submit when full proposals come due October 20, 2026. July 15 — Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EDU). Undergraduate STEM teaching and learning. The July 15 deadline covers Institutional and Community Transformation Level 2 proposals and Engaged Student Learning Level 2 and Level 3 proposals. July 15 — Arctic Research Opportunities. Research on the Arctic region through the Office of Polar Programs. This is a target date; the next cycle is January 15, 2027. July 21 — CyberAICorps Scholarship for Service (CyberAI SFS). A new solicitation published February 2026 that extends the long-running CyberCorps Scholarship for Service model to AI and cybersecurity workforce development. Per the solicitation, Scholarship Track proposals submitted after July 21 will not be accepted. July 21 — EPSCoR E-CORE. Research infrastructure cores in EPSCoR-eligible jurisdictions. Up to $37.5 million in program funding. July 22 — Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). NSF's most prestigious award for pre-tenure faculty, funding integrated research and education for five years. Minimum award $400,000; estimated program funding $250 million. The deadline recurs annually on the fourth Wednesday of July. July 24 — NSF Trailblazer Engineering Impact Award. Individual investigators proposing novel directions in fundamental or applied engineering research. One proposal per PI. July 27 — SBIR/STTR Phase I, Phase II, and Fast-Track (NSF 26-510). Deep technology R&D at U.S. small businesses. A companion solicitation, NSF 26-511, runs a pilot emphasis on scientific instrumentation with the same July 27 deadline. The next cycle for both is November 4, 2026. July 28 — Integrated Data Systems & Services (IDSS). Operations-level national cyberinfrastructure for data-intensive and AI-driven science. The July 28 date applies to Category II submissions. Award range in the posted announcement: $500,000 to $30 million.
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August 2026: Twelve Due Dates
August 4 — Mathematical Sciences Infrastructure Program. Projects that support the mathematical sciences research community as a whole. Target date; it recurs the first Tuesday of February and August. August 7 — CREST Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (CREST-RISE). Research capability building at minority-serving institutions that are emerging research institutions. Awards from $100,000 to $2 million; $6 million in total program funding. August 11 — four programs share this deadline, the second Tuesday in August: Correctness for Scientific Computing Systems (CS2), a joint NSF and Department of Energy program on the correctness of scientific software. Research Training Groups in the Mathematical Sciences (RTG), training grants of $400,000 to $600,000, with $12 million in total program funding. EPSCoR E-RISE, research incubators in EPSCoR jurisdictions. Up to $31.5 million annually, supporting four-year awards with budgets up to $8 million. ECLIPSE, plasma science and engineering research. August 13 — Scholarships in STEM Network (S-STEM-Net). Networks and hubs that connect S-STEM projects and disseminate what works in supporting low-income STEM students. August 17 — three ocean sciences programs share a target date: Biological Oceanography, Chemical Oceanography, and Physical Oceanography. The next cycle is mid-February 2027. August 19 — Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU). Sites and supplements that put undergraduates into active research. Awards from $5,000 to $500,000; $84.8 million in total program funding. August 25 — Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. Recruiting and preparing STEM majors and professionals to teach K-12 mathematics and science. Awards from $100,000 to $3.25 million; $68 million in total program funding. Search open STEM education grants
Deadlines, Target Dates, and Letters of Intent
Three kinds of dates appear above, and they behave differently. Hard deadlines mean late proposals are not accepted. CAREER (July 22), IUSE (July 15), CyberAI SFS (July 21), E-CORE (July 21), the SBIR/STTR solicitations (July 27), CS2, RTG, E-RISE, and ECLIPSE (all August 11), and REU (August 19) work this way. NSF deadlines fall at 5 p.m. in the submitting organization's local time. Target dates mean proposals received afterward are still accepted but may miss the current review cycle. Arctic Research Opportunities (July 15), the Mathematical Sciences Infrastructure Program (August 4), and the three oceanography programs (August 17) use target dates. Two weeks late on a target date means your proposal rolls to the next panel — a delay, not a disqualification. Required letters of intent are gates. HBCU-EiR requires an LOI by July 9 ahead of its October 20 full proposal deadline. The LOI itself is short, but skipping it locks you out of the entire cycle. The solicitation always states which type of date applies, in the Due Dates section near the top. One 2026-specific note: NSF's review operation is running with fewer staff and fewer required reviewers than in past years (the NSF grants guide covers the details). Build slack into your submission timeline and do not count on extensions.
Where to Focus
If you are pre-tenure faculty: CAREER, July 22. It comes once a year, the minimum award is $400,000 over five years, and every NSF directorate participates. Email your program officer in June, not the week of the deadline — with more award decisions now resting on program officer discretion, that conversation matters more than it used to. If you are at an HBCU: file the HBCU-EiR letter of intent by July 9. It costs you a page of writing and keeps the October 20 full proposal option open. Decide later whether to follow through. If you are in an EPSCoR jurisdiction: two separate infrastructure competitions are open. E-CORE (July 21) funds research infrastructure cores; E-RISE (August 11) funds research incubators with budgets up to $8 million over four years. They are distinct programs with distinct deadlines, and the three-week gap means a team shut out of one can still plan for the other next cycle. If you work on undergraduate STEM education: four dates in sequence — IUSE Level 2 and 3 proposals July 15, S-STEM-Net August 13, REU sites August 19, and Noyce August 25. These programs sit in the STEM Education directorate, which lost the most grants in the 2025 terminations, so check the current solicitation language against what you remember from past cycles. If you run a small business: SBIR/STTR proposals are due July 27, with the next window November 4. Review the SBIR/STTR reauthorization status before committing, since the program's authorization has been in flux. If your field is AI or cybersecurity education: CyberAI SFS closes July 21. It is the first July cycle of a solicitation published in February 2026, replacing the prior CyberCorps SFS solicitation.
If the Summer Dates Are Too Soon
Most of these programs recur on a fixed annual rhythm, stated in each solicitation: CAREER on the fourth Wednesday of July, IUSE on the third Wednesday of July, E-RISE on the second Tuesday of August, REU on the third Wednesday of August. SBIR/STTR returns November 4, 2026 and again March 4, 2027. The oceanography and mathematical sciences target dates cycle again in February 2027. NSF also runs many programs with no deadline at all. Standard research proposals in much of physics, chemistry, engineering, and ecology are accepted year-round, and the RAPID and EAGER mechanisms take submissions any time with program officer approval. The NSF grants guide covers those mechanisms and the agency's current review process. Search CAREER and early-career funding Search EPSCoR programs
Before You Submit
Four compliance items disqualify NSF proposals administratively, regardless of merit: 1. Research security training. All senior and key personnel must complete NSF's training modules before submission. Proposals without it are rejected unreviewed. 2. Active SAM.gov registration, not expiring mid-review. See the SAM.gov registration guide. 3. A current Research.gov account with institutional permissions in place. Most institutions also impose internal deadlines 5 to 10 business days ahead of NSF's. 4. A data management plan updated for the data-sharing-at-publication requirement that took effect with NSF 26-200. Then the single highest-value step: email the program officer listed in the solicitation before you write. Several NSF programs changed scope or schedule during the agency's 2025-2026 reorganization, and the posted solicitation does not always reflect the latest internal reality. Last: deadlines change. Before committing weeks of work, open the linked solicitation on nsf.gov and confirm the date yourself. If a date in this article and the nsf.gov page ever disagree, nsf.gov wins. Search all open National Science Foundation grants