What this program funds
An REU Site award funds a faculty team to host a cohort of undergraduates for intensive research experiences, usually over 8–10 summer weeks, for several consecutive years. The award pays student stipends, housing and travel, and the program infrastructure around them — mentoring, professional development, cohort activities, and evaluation. Note the two audiences here: this page is about the Site award faculty apply for; students seeking a summer position apply directly to funded sites, not to NSF.
Eligibility in plain English
- The PI is a researcher at a U.S. institution (universities, colleges, and some nonprofits and labs) proposing a coherent research theme with enough active mentors to support a cohort.
- Sites must recruit nationally, beyond the host campus — in recent cycles, a substantial share of participants must come from outside the host institution, with emphasis on students who have limited research opportunities where they study.
- Student participants must generally be U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents enrolled in an undergraduate program — relevant when you design your recruitment plan.
- Both new sites and renewals compete; renewals are expected to bring outcome data. Confirm details with your sponsored-programs office and the current solicitation.
What you'll need to submit
- Project Description covering the research theme, the individual mentored projects, and the cohort-level program design.
- Recruitment and selection plan — where students come from, how you reach them, and selection criteria.
- Mentoring and professional-development plan, including mentor preparation and responsible-conduct-of-research training.
- Assessment and evaluation plan, ideally with an independent evaluator and named instruments.
- Budget and Budget Justification — student stipends, housing, travel, program costs; participant-support rules constrain how funds move.
- Biographical Sketches and Current and Pending Support for the PI and mentor team; for renewals, outcome data from prior cohorts.
Tips for this mechanism
- The recruitment plan is scored, not assumed. Competitive sites show concrete pipelines to students from community colleges and institutions with limited research infrastructure — named partner institutions beat "we will advertise widely."
- Design the cohort, not just ten projects. Reviewers distinguish an integrated program (shared seminars, skills workshops, social structure, a culminating symposium) from a stack of individual lab placements.
- Put real evaluation in from day one. Pre/post instruments, an external evaluator, and multi-year tracking of where alumni land are what make the eventual renewal writable.
- Get the participant-support budgeting right early. Student support dollars are fenced in ways that surprise first-time PIs; involve your grants office before you promise a budget shape you can't execute.
Related programs
- REU Supplements (add one or two students to an existing NSF research award — much lighter-weight than a Site)
- NSF RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) Sites
- NSF IRES (International Research Experiences for Students)
- NSF S-STEM (scholarships, rather than research experiences, for STEM undergraduates)