Cottrell Scholar Award 2027: Closed RCSA Grant for Teacher-Scholars in Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy

Cottrell Scholar Award 2027: Closed RCSA Grant for Teacher-Scholars in Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy

The Cottrell Scholar Award is a Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) program for early-career faculty who are building both a serious research program and a meaningful record of academic leadership. It is designed for teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics, and astronomy, not for a research project that happens to mention teaching. A proposal must explain the scientific importance and feasibility of the research while also presenting a specific educational plan and an account of academic citizenship.

The application process for the 2027 Cottrell Scholar Awards is closed. RCSA lists the proposal deadline for the relevant submission cycle as 11 PM MST on July 1, 2026. RCSA also says that award decisions for the 2027 cohort will be announced by February 15, 2027. No later Cottrell Scholar cycle or new submission deadline is announced on the verified program page used for this entry. This page is therefore a historical reference for the closed 2027 cycle, not a current invitation to submit an application.

Key details

What the award provides

Each Cottrell Scholar Award provides $120,000 over three years. RCSA states that the funds may support both research and educational activities. The listed direct-cost uses include equipment, supplies, undergraduate and graduate salary, wages and stipends, graduate student tuition and fees, postdoctoral salaries, and travel to the annual Cottrell Scholar conference and other conferences or workshops. Summer salary is allowed for faculty in non-doctoral departments.

The award is not an unrestricted institutional payment. RCSA says that funds may not be used for indirect costs, academic-year faculty salaries, routine administrative expenses, books or journals, visa costs, or construction or renovation. A budget justification or budget pages are not required. Those distinctions matter when evaluating whether the award would fit a department’s research plan: applicants need a credible use of direct project costs, but they should not build a proposal around expenses that RCSA excludes.

The program also connects awardees to a multigenerational community of scholar-educators across the United States and Canada. RCSA requires awardees to attend at least two Cottrell Scholar Conferences during the award period. Travel for those conferences should be charged to the Cottrell Scholar award, while RCSA covers other conference costs such as the hotel room and meals. Attendance at two conferences during the award period is also required for eligibility for Cottrell Plus awards. These community and conference commitments are part of the program’s structure, not optional promotional extras.

Eligibility for the closed 2027 cohort

The verified page describes the 2026 submission cycle that led to the 2027 cohort. It says the award was open to early-career tenure-track faculty at U.S. or Canadian research universities or primarily undergraduate institutions. The applicant needed a primary or courtesy appointment in a chemistry, physics, or astronomy department offering a bachelor’s or graduate degree in the relevant discipline.

For that cycle, applicants needed to have started their first tenure-track position during calendar year 2023. RCSA’s FAQ explains that a January or September 2023 start could make a candidate eligible in the third academic year of the first tenure-track position. A person who had held any prior tenure-track position was not eligible under the stated rule. This is an important distinction: the program is not simply for anyone who considers themselves early career, and a current appointment date alone does not establish eligibility.

RCSA says eligibility extensions may be granted for parental leave, medical circumstances, or other approved tenure-clock delays. The page gives examples involving a stopped tenure clock and parental leave. Applicants with an unusual appointment history would have needed to request an extension and confirm their situation with RCSA rather than assuming that an extension applied automatically. The page also says that multiple faculty from one institution could apply in the same year and that there were no institutional limits; multiple awards could be made within one department.

The research component needed to advance fundamental knowledge in chemistry, physics, or astronomy. Applied work could be eligible if it clearly advanced fundamental knowledge, but a proposal focused on applying established science to new technology, methods, techniques, or a different discipline was not automatically a fit. RCSA specifically says that a submission was not accepted when the research component itself focused on science education rather than advancing a scientific discipline. The educational plan complements the scientific research; it does not replace it.

What the closed-cycle proposal required

RCSA’s verified proposal requirements list the following elements for a three-year Cottrell Scholar Award proposal:

• A title, five keywords, and an abstract explaining how the applicant would become an outstanding teacher-scholar with strong academic citizenship skills.
• A research plan.
• An educational plan.
• An academic citizenship statement.
• A support letter from a department head, Dean, or Provost.
• A combined two-page list of references for the research and education plans.
• A list of 10 suggested reviewers.
• Publications from the last five years, excluding abstracts, talks, and conference proceedings.
• Authorized Organizational Representative approval and final submission to RCSA.

The research plan was limited to four pages, using Arial 11-point font with half-inch margins. RCSA asked applicants to state the problem, explain its significance, and describe the procedure. The plan needed to identify an important scientific question, make the originality of the approach clear, distinguish the proposed direction from currently funded or pending projects, and give reviewers confidence that the applicant was pursuing an independent program. Preliminary results and independent publications could strengthen the case, but the page did not require that every proposal be a completely new scientific thrust.

The educational plan was a combined PDF of no more than five pages. It had three required sections. The first, limited to three pages, addressed the educational problem, its significance, and the plan of procedure. The second, limited to one page, was an assessment plan that defined expected outcomes and explained how the applicant would evaluate progress and improve the project. The third, also limited to one page, listed every undergraduate and graduate course taught since the beginning of the first faculty appointment, including enrollment, a short description, and teaching methods.

The educational plan needed to address a significant problem in undergraduate or graduate science education with a feasible response. RCSA’s evaluation criteria included originality, impact on courses and student demographics, commitment to education, knowledge of science-education literature, assessment, departmental or institutional participation, and suitability for the institution. The support letter had to endorse the educational proposal and explain why the applicant was the appropriate faculty member to lead it. Undergraduate research in a laboratory could be part of a broader educational record, but RCSA cautioned that it should not be the central component of the educational proposal.

The academic citizenship statement was limited to one page. It needed to explain how the applicant’s service activities supported teaching and research, contributed to professional growth, and connected to future leadership development. RCSA asked for specific examples of past or ongoing service at the institution. Collaboration letters were required when the research relied on skills or equipment outside the applicant’s laboratory, and educational collaboration letters were required when an educational collaborator was based at another institution. RCSA also specified separate limits and formatting expectations for those letters.

How the closed-cycle submission worked

The 2027 application process cannot be started from this page because RCSA marks it closed. The steps below describe the verified process and materials for the historical cycle so that applicants, advisors, and institutional research offices can understand what the program required. They are not instructions to submit after the deadline.

First, a candidate had to confirm the appointment-year rule, field, institution, and first-tenure-track history. Anyone seeking an eligibility extension needed to request it through RCSA. Second, the candidate prepared the research plan and educational plan as a connected pair: the scientific work had to be independent and significant, while the education work had to address a real institutional need with assessable outcomes. Third, the candidate assembled the citizenship statement, publications, references, suggested reviewers, and required support or collaboration letters.

The reviewer list required complete names, titles, addresses, and email addresses for at least 10 potential reviewers. RCSA asked for at least eight outsiders and at least two insiders, with a brief description of the relationship to each reviewer. An outsider was someone with no substantive personal or professional contact with the applicant; a former mentor, advisor, or collaborator was an insider. RCSA warned that inaccurate contact information or a reviewer whose expertise did not match the proposal could delay or weaken the review. Program directors were not limited to the people listed by the applicant when selecting reviewers.

Fourth, the applicant entered the institution’s Authorized Organizational Representative information into the submission system. The AOR needed to review and approve the proposal before the final submission to RCSA. The official page warned applicants to allow enough time for routing through the Office of Sponsored Projects and stated that a proposal could not be submitted without institutional approval. The July 1 deadline was firm; late proposals were not accepted. Finally, conforming applications were screened by RCSA Program Directors, then strong educational plans advanced to external research review and consideration by the Cottrell Scholar Selection Committee. Recommendations were approved by the RCSA Board of Directors.

Practical reading of the opportunity

The strongest fit is a faculty member whose scientific program is clearly independent and whose educational proposal is concrete enough to assess. The two parts should feel like the work of one teacher-scholar: the research plan should demonstrate scientific judgment and a viable path to fundamental knowledge, while the educational plan should show an informed response to a problem in the applicant’s own teaching environment. A generic statement about caring about students would not meet the level of specificity described by RCSA.

Applicants preparing for a later cycle should preserve the structure of this closed-cycle record but recheck every requirement on RCSA’s official page when a new call is posted. In particular, they should not carry forward the appointment year, deadline, page limits, or application-system instructions without confirmation. A later cycle may revise any of those details. Until RCSA announces that cycle, this entry should remain an archive of the 2027 award process rather than a page promising a date that does not exist.

Frequently asked questions

Is the 2027 Cottrell Scholar Award still accepting applications?

No. RCSA states that the application process for 2027 Cottrell Scholar Awards is closed.

What was the proposal deadline?

The verified deadline was 11 PM MST on July 1, 2026. The deadline field for this historical entry records the date as 2026-07-01 so the site can correctly treat the opportunity as expired.

How much was the award?

Each award provides $120,000 over three years for research and educational activities, subject to RCSA’s allowable and excluded cost rules.

Who was eligible for the 2027 cohort?

For the 2026 submission cycle, the page described early-career tenure-track faculty at eligible U.S. or Canadian institutions who held a primary or courtesy appointment in chemistry, physics, or astronomy and started their first tenure-track position during calendar year 2023. Extensions could be granted for qualifying circumstances, and prior tenure-track employment could make a candidate ineligible.

What did applicants have to submit?

The closed-cycle package included a research plan, educational plan, academic citizenship statement, institutional support letter, references, 10 suggested reviewers, recent publications, and AOR approval. The plans and supporting documents had specific page, formatting, and content requirements described above.

When will the next cycle open?

RCSA has not announced a later cycle on the verified page used for this entry. No next deadline is recorded here. Check RCSA’s official Cottrell Scholar Award page for any future announcement.

Official source

Research Corporation for Science Advancement: https://rescorp.org/cottrell-scholars/cottrell-scholar-award/

RCSA is the organisation that administers the program and the source for the closed status, proposal deadline, award amount, eligibility rules, proposal requirements, AOR approval requirement, and decision timing recorded here. Until RCSA announces a later cycle, this page should be used to understand the historical 2027 opportunity and its requirements, not as a live application listing.