Special awards are chosen by Special Award Organizations with their own judges, so they are an independent second chance. The most active sponsors in 2021 to 2026: the Air Force Research Laboratory with 150 awards, Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz and his Companions Foundation (Mawhiba) 150, Arizona State University 112, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) 112, the University of Arizona 97, the American Mathematical Society 91, NC State Engineering 81, INCOSE 77 and the American Psychological Association 60. For coding and mathematics projects the realistic targets are AAAI (Software Design 40, Robotics 25), ACM 30, the NSA Research Directorate 42, IEEE 22, the American Statistical Association 31, AMS and Mu Alpha Theta (116 in Mathematics) and the Patent and Trademark Office Society 52.
Sponsors, award counts and their main categories
Sponsors are grouped by the part of the award name before the colon. Some give across every category (AFRL); others give in one (AMS entirely in Mathematics, APA 56 of 60 in Behavioral and Social Sciences). The last column counts awards to Korean projects in 2021 to 2026.
Show the full table (40 rows)
| Sponsor | Awards | Main categories (count) | To Korea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air Force Research Laboratory on behalf of the United States Air Force | 150 | Embedded Systems 9; Animal Sciences 7; Biochemistry 7 | 0 |
| King Abdulaziz & his Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativi | 150 | Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design 19; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 19; Materials Science 18 | 3 |
| Arizona State University | 112 | Earth and Environmental Sciences 16; Chemistry 8; Environmental Engineering 8 | 0 |
| Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence | 112 | Software Design 40; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 25; Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 8 | 2 |
| University of Arizona | 97 | Animal Sciences 12; Biomedical and Health Sciences 11; Earth and Environmental Sciences 10 | 0 |
| American Mathematical Society | 91 | Mathematics 91 | 6 |
| NC State College of Engineering | 81 | Environmental Engineering 15; Systems Software 10; Materials Science 5 | 0 |
| International Council on Systems Engineering - INCOSE | 77 | Biomedical Engineering 32; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 17; Environmental Engineering 10 | 0 |
| American Psychological Association | 60 | Behavioral and Social Sciences 56; Animal Sciences 4 | 2 |
| Patent and Trademark Office Society | 52 | Physics and Astronomy 10; Chemistry 6; Embedded Systems 5 | 0 |
| University of Texas at Dallas | 50 | Biomedical and Health Sciences 9; Chemistry 5; Translational Medical Science 5 | 0 |
| U.S. Agency for International Development | 48 | Earth and Environmental Sciences 11; Environmental Engineering 7; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 4 | 0 |
| National Security Agency Research Directorate | 42 | Systems Software 12; Mathematics 10; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 8 | 0 |
| China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) | 40 | Earth and Environmental Sciences 7; Physics and Astronomy 6; Environmental Engineering 4 | 1 |
| Missouri University of Science and Technology | 40 | Animal Sciences 5; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 4; Engineering Technology: Statics & Dynamics 4 | 0 |
| Central Intelligence Agency | 40 | Robotics and Intelligent Machines 9; Systems Software 9; Behavioral and Social Sciences 8 | 0 |
| American Chemical Society | 36 | Chemistry 34; Biochemistry 2 | 1 |
| American Statistical Association | 31 | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 8; Earth and Environmental Sciences 4; Behavioral and Social Sciences 3 | 0 |
| Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society | 30 | Biomedical Engineering 4; Environmental Engineering 4; Animal Sciences 3 | 1 |
| Serving Society Through Science | 30 | Animal Sciences 4; Biomedical and Health Sciences 3; Translational Medical Science 3 | 0 |
| Association for Computing Machinery | 30 | Robotics and Intelligent Machines 12; Systems Software 12; Embedded Systems 2 | 0 |
| Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT) | 28 | Microbiology 9; Biochemistry 5; Chemistry 5 | 2 |
| Office of Naval Research on behalf of the United States Navy and Marin | 26 | Embedded Systems 7; Engineering Technology: Statics & Dynamics 7; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 4 | 0 |
| Shanghai Science Association for Young Talents | 25 | Biomedical Engineering 4; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 4; Translational Medical Science 3 | 0 |
| Mu Alpha Theta, National High School and Two-Year College Mathematics | 25 | Mathematics 25 | 1 |
| The University of Texas at Dallas | 24 | Behavioral and Social Sciences 4; Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 3; Chemistry 2 | 0 |
| The Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications | 23 | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 7; Earth and Environmental Sciences 6; Translational Medical Science 4 | 0 |
| IEEE Foundation | 22 | Systems Software 7; Engineering Technology: Statics & Dynamics 5; Engineering Mechanics 2 | 0 |
| National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - NOAA | 21 | Earth and Environmental Sciences 17; Environmental Engineering 4 | 0 |
| National Anti-Vivisection Society | 20 | Translational Medical Science 4; Biomedical and Health Sciences 3; Biomedical Engineering 3 | 1 |
| YM American Academy | 20 | Chemistry 20 | 0 |
| Long Island University | 20 | Biochemistry 3; Animal Sciences 2; Biomedical and Health Sciences 2 | 0 |
| Acoustical Society of America | 16 | Robotics and Intelligent Machines 4; Animal Sciences 4; Physics and Astronomy 2 | 0 |
| Fondazione Bruno Kessler | 16 | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 3; Engineering Technology: Statics & Dynamics 2; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 2 | 0 |
| Oracle Academy | 15 | Systems Software 9; Robotics and Intelligent Machines 4; Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 1 | 0 |
| Florida Institute of Technology | 15 | Earth and Environmental Sciences 3; Chemistry 2; Engineering Technology: Statics & Dynamics 2 | 0 |
| Westlake University | 15 | Biomedical Engineering 3; Chemistry 2; Earth and Environmental Sciences 2 | 0 |
| The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye TUBITAK | 15 | Cellular and Molecular Biology 2; Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design 2; Materials Science 2 | 0 |
| Zydus Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. | 15 | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 3; Cellular and Molecular Biology 3; Biomedical Engineering 3 | 0 |
| American Meteorological Society | 13 | Earth and Environmental Sciences 9; Mathematics 1; Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design 1 | 1 |
Special awards a coding or math project can target
- AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence): 112 awards. Software Design 40, Robotics 25, Computational Biology 8, Translational Medical 8. Given where AI is central, including life-science projects that use AI as the instrument. Korea: 2 in 2021 to 2026, 3 over 13 years.
- ACM (Association for Computing Machinery): 30. Robotics 12, Systems Software 12. Judges the completeness of systems and algorithms.
- NSA Research Directorate: 42. Systems Software 12, Mathematics 10, Robotics 8. Algorithms, security, mathematical rigor.
- IEEE Foundation: 22. Systems Software 7, Engineering Technology 5.
- American Statistical Association: 31. Computational Biology 8. Statistical design of the analysis.
- AMS and Mu Alpha Theta: 91 and 25, all in Mathematics. AMS is the special award Korea has won most often (6 in 13 years).
- Patent and Trademark Office Society: 52. Physics 10, Chemistry 6, Embedded 5. Patentable devices and methods.
- K. Soumyanath Memorial Award: 10, all in Embedded Systems.
What Korea has won
Korean special awards 2014 to 2026: American Mathematical Society 6, AAAI 3, Mawhiba 3, China Association for Science and Technology 2, DCAT 2, American Psychological Association 2, Midjourney 2, and one each from Sigma Xi, the American Chemical Society, the Acoustical Society of America, the American Meteorological Society, the Potamkin Prize, Aramco, Mu Alpha Theta and NAVS. Six of Korea's nine Mathematics entries in 2021 to 2026 took an AMS award, the most reliable special-award route Korea has had. Since 11.7% of all projects end with a special award only, even a project aimed at a grand award gains a second chance by reading the relevant sponsor's published criteria before the design is fixed.
Frequently asked questions
Data and method
Two public sources. From the Society for Science abstract database (abstracts.societyforscience.org) we compiled every ISEF finalist project from 2014 to 2026: 17,565 projects with title, category, fair country, awards and full abstract. From the isef.net project library we took the award-tier flags for the 8,134 ISEF projects of 2021 to 2026 and joined them to the abstracts by year and booth id. Compiled on 2026-10-11.
A grand award means a First to Fourth Award or Best of Category, roughly the top 27% of each category. A special award is given by a sponsoring organization with its own judges. ISEF 2020 was held without judging and is excluded from every rate. The abstract database carries no 2025 awards and misses most Materials Science grand awards after 2017, so award flags for 2021 to 2026 combine both sources. An AI mention means the title or abstract contains a machine-learning term; it does not mean the project is about AI. All numbers are correlations, and Korean per-category figures rest on 2 to 24 projects, so read them as direction rather than precision.
Sources
- https://abstracts.societyforscience.org/
- https://isef.net/search-results/projects
- https://www.societyforscience.org/isef/awards/
The figures on this page are category-level base rates compiled from public ISEF results. They do not predict or promise any student's award, selection or admission. CIT does not guarantee awards, selection or admission.
ISEF data series
Want to pressure-test a project idea against this data?
Tell us the student's grade, field of interest and target fair. We will map a realistic preparation order against these numbers.