2024 FAQs

No, faculty advisor does not count toward the team limit.

Yes, a single faculty member may advise multiple teams, though advise from diverse faculty may be beneficial to students.

Civil Servants are not permitted. The team's primary advisor must be from a space grant affiliated school (the lead institution). Any additional advisors can be from academia or industry.

Proposals are reviewed by a panel of judges, comprised of NASA and industry experts who will evaluate and score the competition between participating teams. You can view this year's challenge judges here.

We understand that NOI’s are due early in the development process and teams will still be in the process of fleshing out many of the details of their concepts. We fully expect that teams’ concepts will change and evolve between the NOI and Proposal submissions, as in-depth research and analysis is conducted. Teams have the flexibility to change ideas as they work over the course of the semester, and the idea submitted in the NOI does not need to match the proposal submission.

NOIs are non-binding. If a team submits an NOI and then later decides not to participate in the competition, no further action is required.

Yes, multiple teams from the same university can submit separate proposals, and multiple teams from the same university may move on to the next round of the competition if their proposals merit selection.

Yes, you can form multi-university teams for the BIG Idea Challenge! There are a few important factors regarding faculty advisers:

• One space grant-affiliated university will need to be the "lead" university on your project, and provide a faculty advisor for the team
• If your team is one of the finalists chosen to attend the forum, the faculty advisor from the lead institution would be responsible for handling the financial piece; we would send the development stipend to the “lead” university, and the faculty advisor would be in charge of distributing it and ensuring as many team members as possible could participate.
• A faculty advisor from one of the universities would also need to go to the forum with the team. However, the multi-university team would only require one advisor, not one for each university.

Yes, absolutely. We understand that sometimes things change between the time proposals were submitted and the time the written report is due. We just ask that you list every person who contributed to your project in the technical paper.

Note: Eligibility requirements still apply to any additional students or faculty brought into the team.

• Foreign universities are not eligible to participate in the BIG Idea Challenge.
• Up to 5 participating team members may be foreign nationals if they are attending the U.S.-based university submitting a proposal. BIG Idea Challenge funding cannot be used to directly support any non-U.S. citizen.
• BIG Idea Challenge funding may not be used to directly support travel or stipends for federal employees acting within the scope of employment (this includes co-op students with civil servant status).

Yes, industry collaboration is certainly acceptable! We encourage your team to utilize all of the resources you have at your disposal to submit a top-notch concept.

Because this is a NASA-sponsored competition, eligibility is limited to students from universities in the United States. Please see the Eligibility Requirements.

Foreign Nationals (FNs) attending the proposing U.S.-based university can participate on a BIG Idea Challenge team, with one notable exclusion. Due to prohibitive restrictions and ever-changing NASA security regulations, foreign nationals will not be able to attend culminating BIG Idea Forum events that take place on-site at a NASA Center (including tours). There will be no exceptions to this policy. FNs can, however, participate in any portions of the culminating BIG Idea Forum that take place off-Center.

High school students are allowed to participate in the challenge as EXTRA members of the team (they do not count towards the minimum university team members), but students currently in high school at the time of the Forum will be unable to attend the on-site Forum at NASA if your team is selected as a finalist. They should be clearly identified and listed as extra team members on your proposal submission.

If a high school team member graduates and is attending college in the at the time of the forum, they may be able to join your team at the Forum. The lead institution would be responsible for determining their travel plans.

We cannot support students under the age of 18 years old.

Because this is a NASA-sponsored competition, eligibility is limited to students from universities in the United States. Please see the Eligibility section on the 2024 Challenge Details page.

Foreign universities are not eligible to participate in the BIG Idea Challenge.

Yes. For the purposes of the BIG Idea Challenge, legal permanent residents ("Green Card" holders) count as U.S. citizens.

Please see the Forum Information page for the most up-to-date information on Forum dates and location.

Each of the finalist teams will receive a monetary award to facilitate full participation in the Forum. Costs of Forum participation (travel, lodging, Registration for the BIG Idea Forum, etc.) should be included in the team's submitted Phase 2 Budget. Teams are responsible for making their own plans, including travel and lodging. Some meals may be included in the BIG Idea Challenge Forum registration fee.

See the Budget Cost Notes & Instructions PDF for more information. Additional budget and proposal information can also be found on the Proposal Checklist.

Advisors can provide guidance and insight into the team's decisions, as well as acting as a primary contact point between the BIG Idea coordinators and the universities. Faculty advisors of finalist teams will be responsible for submitting any university paperwork we require for the competition, and working with the university to make any necessary arrangements for the team to attend the BIG Forum. The advisor also ensures that teams submit their deliverables by the established deadlines and that Forum registration is conducted on time.

Faculty advisors are encouraged to attend the Forum.

The production value of the video does not affect your score/evaluation at all. The video is simply a tool you can take advantage of to help augment or further explain your concepts to the judges. There are a wide variety of video examples under the Resources tab on the Challenge Details from past finalists.

A table of contents is not needed, but if you choose to include one, it will not count towards the total page count.

No, there are no conflicts with submitting your concept and any analysis work to any conference.

It is the responsibility of each team to appropriately handle copyright issues related to anything you choose to use in your presentation (including, but not limited to: music, images, graphics, and photos). Neither NASA nor NIA can grant permission for you to use copyrighted material.

The required forms for the BIG Idea Challenge Proposal Package should only be filled out by and submitted from the Lead Institution.

Partnering universities are not required to fill out the W9 or have a letter from their Space Grant. However, you will need to include a Letter of Support from the partnering university, indicating they are aware of and support the partnership.

The NASA budget changed between the Sneak Peek and official challenge launch. The $150,000 cap on stipend budgets is correct.

Letters of Support only need to be included for anyone that is offering to support your project in a meaningful way.  This could include expert collaborators. The letter should include a high-level overview of any and all support they are providing your proposed project (i.e., mentorship, access to testing facilities, in-kind materials and supplies, sponsorship, donations, etc.).

You can proceed with the procurement as long as it is NOT communications equipment. There is a policy that prohibits the purchase of communication equipment from Chinese sources with government funds. For this policy, and for information on purchasing from other foreign entities, please read the Grant Information Circular.

The university must fill out the W9, as we are only able to issue stipend checks directly to universities (not to individual student organizations).

However, if you are selected as a finalist, we can mail the check to any specific mailing address at the university, including a student club address (eg. SEDS).

There is a section on the bottom of the online proposal submission form that allows you to enter in a specific mailing address of your choosing, to ensure the stipend check reaches the correct point of contact that can deposit the stipend into the correct university account.

Paying the salary of a NASA contractor is an unallowable expense for the BIG Idea Challenge for several reasons.  Using BIG Idea funds to support the work of a NASA contractor would present a conflict of interest.  Additionally,  one of the goals of the BIG Idea Challenge is for students and universities to actively participate in NASA’s work by providing hands-on, relevant research that will provide them with unparalleled real-world experience.

See answer above. To clarify, there are three categories of individuals to address for this response:

1. Federal employees/civil servants: NASA civil servants are not permitted to serve as official BIG Idea Challenge collaborators in any capacity (either paid or unpaid).
   • The one exception is that teams selected as finalists may work with NASA civil servants on securing access to relevant testing facilities (i.e., vacuum chambers, etc.), and those testing costs could be included as a part of the team’s budget. However, it is important to note that the team would need to work directly with the NASA center for access to testing facilities; access to these facilities is not guaranteed; and access may be delayed, rescinded, or denied if other pressing NASA testing takes priority over the BIG Idea project work and/or if COVID-19 restrictions remain in place.
2. JPL and other NASA contractors: NASA contractors may participate as volunteer collaborators or mentors. Although it is acceptable to pay industry consultants who work outside of NASA, paying the salary of a NASA contractor (even as a consultant) is an unallowable expense for the BIG Idea Challenge. Using BIG Idea funds to support the work of a NASA contractor would present a conflict of interest. This also applies to NASA JPL employees who are not civil servants.
3. Retired and former NASA civil servants or contractors, and non-NASA industry subject-matter experts: Individuals who are not currently employed by  NASA as a civil servant or contractor may participate as collaborators or mentors for a BIG Idea team, and may be paid for their time using phase 1 and/or phase 2 funding. However, we encourage you to limit the amount of budget used for consultants. NASA wants the bulk of the funding to go to the university – and have students and faculty doing the majority of the work on these projects. Additionally, teams will be competing against proposals that are utilizing consultants who are volunteering their time to the effort as an in-kind donation.

There is not a limit to the number of people that you can write into the budget as going to the Forum next November.  However, we encourage you to balance your budget appropriately to ensure that there are enough funds to cover the necessary research, work, materials and testing to successfully demonstrate the system.

You are welcome to use whatever start date makes sense to your university. We asked teams to use February 1 as the start date so that they could get reimbursed for work they may have conducted prior to the anticipated award dates in March.

In general, the judges will evaluate teams' proposals as submitted.  However, for the teams that are selected as finalists, the judges will schedule a call with the teams to provide feedback on which areas they would like teams to focus on (or steer away from).

So, if they liked most of your solution but were concerned about the complexity or functionality of one aspect of it, they could still select your team as a finalist but tell you not to waste time on the particular aspect that concerned them.

Ultimately, the image or graphic is at the team’s discretion. Ideally, the submitted graphic best represents your concept visually, should it be used in online media showcasing proposed concepts (think: online news article). Two documents are linked below, summarizing finalist teams' concepts from previous years. As you can see, teams provided a wide variety of conceptual images.

https://bigidea.nianet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023-BIG-Idea-Finalist-Team-Synopses.pdf
https://bigidea.nianet.org/wp-content/uploads/2022-BIG-Idea-Challenge-Finalist-Team-Synopses.pdf

The proposal design specs should consider both the final design and the prototype and should clearly define how the prototype is scaled to the final design. Any differences in their design specs, material choice, etc. should be explained.