The NSF broader impacts criterion 2026 revision narrows Goal 7 of the agency’s seven-part broader-impacts framework: activities aimed at broadening STEM participation must now be open and available to all Americans, rather than restricted to applicants with specific protected characteristics. This guide explains what changed, why, and how principal investigators and research offices should rewrite their statements.
Broader impacts is one of two co-equal NSF merit-review criteria — alongside intellectual merit — used to evaluate whether a proposal’s societal benefit, beyond the science itself, is well-reasoned, evidence-based, and assessable.
- What is the NSF broader impacts criterion?
- What changed in Goal 7 for 2026?
- How does the revised Goal 7 compare with the other six goals?
- How should PIs rewrite their broader-impacts statement?
- What should research administration offices do?
- Common questions about NSF broader impacts
- Implications and outlook
What is the NSF broader impacts criterion?
NSF defines broader impacts as the potential of a proposed activity to benefit society and contribute to specific, desired societal outcomes, distinct from — but complementary to — the scientific merit of the work itself. NSF’s official guidance frames it as one of two equally weighted review criteria applied to every proposal the agency funds.
The statutory basis for the criterion’s societal-outcome categories traces to the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, which enumerates seven broader-impacts goals that NSF-funded activity can advance: economic competitiveness, public health and welfare, national security, academia-industry partnerships, STEM workforce development, public scientific literacy, and full participation of under-represented groups in STEM — the last of these is Goal 7.
What changed in Goal 7 for 2026?
Under guidance NSF began issuing in April 2025 and continued refining through 2026, broadening-participation activities funded under Goal 7 must be structured so that eligibility and outreach are open to all Americans, rather than limited to applicants or participants defined by protected characteristics. Research-development offices — including the University of California, Davis proposal-development team — confirmed in an August 2025 update that “broadening participation can still be used as long as your activities and research are open to all Americans.”
An NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences virtual office-hour briefing dated June 2026 restates the same requirement to prospective Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site applicants: opportunities funded through broadening-participation activity “must be open to all Americans.” This is not a retirement of Goal 7 — it is a narrowing of the permissible activity design, shifting eligibility criteria away from protected-characteristic exclusivity and toward open, non-restrictive access framed around non-protected factors such as geography, institution type, socioeconomic status, and career stage.
PIs should treat this as a design constraint, not a disqualification of broadening-participation work: activities that build STEM pathways for rural, first-generation, community-college, or under-resourced-institution populations remain fully consistent with the revised Goal 7, provided eligibility itself is not restricted by protected characteristic.
How does the revised Goal 7 compare with the other six goals?
The table below summarises the seven America COMPETES broader-impacts goals and flags where 2026 guidance has introduced a material change to how PIs should frame activity design.
| Goal | Societal outcome | 2026 guidance status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Increased economic competitiveness of the United States | Unchanged |
| 2 | Advancement of health and welfare of the American public | Unchanged |
| 3 | Development of a globally competitive STEM workforce | Unchanged |
| 4 | Increased partnerships between academia and industry | Unchanged |
| 5 | Improved public scientific literacy and engagement | Unchanged |
| 6 | Improved national security | Unchanged |
| 7 | Full participation of under-represented groups in STEM | Narrowed — activities must be open to all Americans, not restricted by protected characteristic |
How should PIs rewrite their broader-impacts statement?
Rewriting a Goal 7 activity for 2026 compliance is a matter of eligibility language and framing, not abandoning the underlying access goal. Reviewers still expect a well-reasoned, assessable plan under NSF’s five broader-impacts review elements — societal benefit, creative or transformative potential, soundness of the plan, team qualification, and adequate resources.
- Reframe eligibility around non-protected factors. Replace language restricted to protected characteristics with criteria such as rural or under-resourced geography, first-generation status, institution type (community college, minority-serving institution), or career stage.
- State open access explicitly. Add a sentence confirming the activity is open and available to all Americans who meet the stated, non-protected eligibility criteria.
- Keep the assessment mechanism. The plan still needs observable outcome measures, a data-collection method, and a reporting pathway — this expectation predates and survives the Goal 7 change.
- Integrate with the research, not bolt it on. The strongest 2026 statements connect broadening-participation activity directly to the proposed science rather than treating it as a generic add-on.
- Cross-check against the other six goals. Where Goal 7 activity design feels constrained, many PIs find equally strong broader-impacts framing under Goals 1-6, which carry no 2026 eligibility changes.
What should research administration offices do?
Sponsored-programs and research administration offices supporting NSF submissions should update internal templates and reviewer checklists to reflect the Goal 7 eligibility language before the next proposal deadline, not after a reviewer flags it. Three concrete actions matter most.
First, audit existing broadening-participation boilerplate for eligibility language tied to protected characteristics and replace it with non-protected framing. Second, brief proposal-development staff and departmental grants administrators on the distinction between narrowing eligibility language and abandoning broadening-participation activity altogether — the two are frequently conflated internally. Third, flag active, multi-year awards where the original Goal 7 activity plan may now need a no-cost extension or minor scope revision to remain compliant with current guidance.
Common questions about NSF broader impacts
What is the NSF statement on broader impacts?
NSF states that broader impacts is the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes, reviewed as one of two co-equal merit-review criteria alongside intellectual merit for every proposal the agency evaluates.
What are the priorities of NSF in 2026?
NSF’s 2026 priorities keep intellectual merit and broader impacts as co-equal review criteria while applying updated guidance that broadening-participation activity under Goal 7 be open to all Americans, alongside continued expectations for evidence-based, assessable broader-impacts plans integrated with the proposed research.
How hard is it to get an NSF grant?
NSF’s own funding overview reports that PIs submit an average of 2.3 proposals for every award received, and only 36% of new PIs won their first NSF award on their first attempt in 2020 — context that makes a well-constructed, compliant broader-impacts statement a meaningful factor in a competitive process.
Implications and outlook
The Goal 7 narrowing sits inside a wider 2025-2026 tightening of federal guidance on eligibility language tied to protected characteristics, and NSF is unlikely to be the last funder whose broader-impacts or equivalent societal-benefit criterion is revised on similar terms. Institutions with mature broader-impacts infrastructure — partner networks, assessment instruments, evaluation staff — will adapt fastest, since the underlying evaluation bar (evidence, measurable outcomes, integration with the science) has not changed, only the eligibility framing for Goal 7 activity.
For PIs preparing proposals now, the practical posture is straightforward: keep the broadening-participation ambition, rewrite the eligibility language to be open to all Americans, retain a rigorous assessment plan, and confirm the activity is substantively connected to the research. Proposals that make this adjustment cleanly will read as current; those that do not risk a reviewer flag on a criterion that carries equal weight to the science itself.
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