How to Find Your ISEF-Affiliated Regional Science Fair

The International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is the world's largest pre-college science competition, bringing together thousands of high school students from over 80 countries to showcase their research.

Competing there opens doors to scholarships, recognition, and networking with top researchers, but to get there, you first have to qualify through an ISEF-affiliated regional fair. These regional fairs are the entry point: you'll present your work, get feedback, and, if you do well, earn a spot at ISEF. Here's how to find yours and what it takes to get there.

Finding Your ISEF-Affiliated Regional Fair

The Society for Science, which runs ISEF, maintains a full directory of ISEF-affiliated fairs worldwide.

You can search for your regional, state, and national fairs at findafair.societyforscience.org: select your location, and it will show the affiliated fairs that serve your area, along with each fair's contact information and website.

Once you've found your fair, look it up directly for the details that matter most:

• Eligibility requirements,

• Entry process,

• Deadlines.

They all vary from fair to fair. Knowing them early is what lets you build a realistic plan with enough time to prepare.

What You Need to Get to Your Regional Fair

Finding your fair is the easy part. Actually getting there, with a project ready to compete, comes down to three things: a strong idea, your paperwork, and a plan.

A Strong Research Idea

Everything starts with your research question. The best projects are original, address a real-world problem, and reflect genuine curiosity, and landing on the right one is often the hardest part of the whole process. Aim for something specific and answerable rather than broad: not "how does pollution affect water," but a focused, testable question you can actually investigate with the time and resources you have.

If you need help getting there, our guide to crafting the perfect science fair question walks through how to find and sharpen one.

Your Fair's Paperwork

This is the step students most often underestimate. Each science fair requires a set of forms documenting your project, your research plan, and, for projects involving human participants, vertebrate animals, or hazardous materials, approval from a Scientific Review Committee (SRC) before you begin experimenting. These will vary for each fair.

Starting your research before you have the required approvals can disqualify your project, so this isn't something to leave to the last minute.

Our guide to the paperwork for a regional science fair walks through exactly which forms you'll need and when.

A Research Plan

A competitive project takes months, not weeks. Once you know your fair's date and deadlines, work backward to build a timeline that leaves room for research, experimentation, setbacks, and preparing your presentation. As a rule of thumb, aim to start roughly six months out, though the right lead time depends on your project.

Our 10-month ISEF preparation timeline maps out how to pace the full journey, and if you're using the summer to get a head start, our guide on how to build an ISEF project over the summer shows how to make those months count.

Get Expert Help at Every Step With ScienceFair

Finding your fair is straightforward. Building a project that wins it is the real challenge, and it's where expert guidance makes the biggest difference. That's what ScienceFair is built for.

Every coach on our team is a past science fair winner, often of the very fairs you're aiming to compete in, and alongside our Ivy League research mentors, they'll help you with everything that follows: shaping your idea, getting your paperwork right, and preparing for the judges' questions.

Ready to take the next step? Schedule a call with our academic advisor.