Astera Essay Competition
Supports scientists by offering an essay platform to identify field-level bottlenecks and testable strategies through the Astera Essay Competition.
⚠This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
The Astera Essay Competition 2026 is a prize competition organised by the Astera Institute, a San Francisco-based non-profit focused on identifying and removing systemic obstacles to scientific progress. The competition invited active scientists across all disciplines and institutional affiliations — including entrepreneurs and for-profit scientists — to write a three-page, single-spaced essay identifying a concrete bottleneck in their own research field hypothesised to stem from systems-level or structural causes, along with testable hypotheses and experimental strategies to address those structural impediments. Prizes total $50,000: first place receives $30,000, second place $15,000, and third place $5,000.
Any active scientist was eligible to enter, regardless of formal degree, institutional affiliation, or employment sector. Team submissions were permitted, though each individual could win only one prize. Current Astera Institute employees and residents were excluded from participation. The submission process required authors to post their essay publicly online — on a personal website, blog, newsletter, or shared document — and then submit the public link via Astera's application form. The submission deadline was 1 May 2026; winners are to be announced during the week of 22 June 2026. The competition was announced on 11 March 2026.
The Astera Essay Competition rewards analytical rigour in diagnosing structural failures in science systems rather than proposing incremental improvements or abstract commentary. Successful essays in this format typically identify a specific, nameable phenomenon — such as a measurement gap, an incentive misalignment, or a publication bottleneck — and propose a concrete experiment that could falsify or confirm the structural hypothesis. The prize is a recognition award for the essay itself, not funding to execute the proposed research.
Active scientists identifying concrete, systems-level bottlenecks in their own research field and proposing testable hypotheses and experimental strategies to address those structural impediments to scientific progress.
Sign up free to see the funding breakdown
Sign up free to see the industries in scope
Sign up free to see the full eligibility
Sign up free to see how to apply
Sign up free to see what you submit
Sign up free to see the timeline
Sign up free to see where teams trip up