Regeneron ISEF, open to students in grades 9 to 12 worldwide, judges every project inside one of 22 subject categories. The choice matters more than most entrants expect: it decides which judges read the project and which field it competes in. This first half of our guide covers eleven categories; Part II covers the rest.
The first eleven categories
- Animal Sciences (ANIM) - animals, their life cycles and their interactions with each other and the environment. Subcategories run from animal behaviour and genetics to nutrition, physiology, and systematics and evolution.
- Behavioural and Social Sciences (BEHA) - how humans and animals think and interact, studied through observation and experiment: developmental and cognitive psychology, neuroscience, physiological psychology, sociology and social psychology.
- Biochemistry (BCHM) - life processes studied with the tools of chemistry: analytical, general, medicinal and structural biochemistry.
- Biomedical and Health Sciences (BMED) - human health and disease, from diagnosis and treatment to epidemiology; subcategories include physiology, disease genetics and molecular biology, immunology, nutrition and pathophysiology.
- Biomedical Engineering (ENBM) - engineering applied to medicine in both directions, bench to bedside and back: biomaterials and regenerative medicine, biomechanics, biomedical devices, sensors and imaging, cell and tissue engineering, synthetic biology.
- Cellular and Molecular Biology (CELL) - cell structure, function and pathways at the molecular level: cell physiology, cellular immunology, genetics, molecular biology and neurobiology.
- Chemistry (CHEM) - chemical change and its mechanisms: analytical, computational, environmental, inorganic, materials, organic and physical chemistry.
- Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBIO) - biology studied with computer science and mathematics: computational modelling, epidemiology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, pharmacology and genomics.
- Earth and Environmental Sciences (EAEV) - the Earth system and how environments shape organisms and ecosystems: atmospheric science, climate science, environmental effects on ecosystems, geosciences and water science.
- Embedded Systems (EBED) - electrical systems that sense, communicate and control: circuits, the Internet of Things, microcontrollers, networking, optics, sensors and signal processing.
- Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design (EGSD) - producing and storing energy: solar materials, energy storage, wind and water generation, hydrogen production and storage, thermal generation, triboelectric and electrolytic processes.
How to use the list
Choose the category that matches the research question rather than the equipment. A project measuring how a pollutant changes plant growth belongs with the environmental or plant categories even if the measurement is done with electronics; judges score within their own field, and a mismatched category puts strong work in front of the wrong readers.
Every category also carries an Other (OTH) subcategory, so a project that fits the field but not a named niche still has a home.
ISEF cannot be entered directly - qualification runs through affiliated regional fairs, which in China include regional selection events described on our ISEF page. Some regions need project work to begin a year ahead of the finals.