By the JWST Cycle 2 deadline at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on January 27, 2023, STScI had received a total of 1,602 unique proposals, consisting of 1,467 General Observing (GO) proposals, 31 Survey proposals, and 104 Archival Research (AR) proposals. This is the largest number of proposals ever received by STScI for a single call, exceeding the most popular Hubble cycle by more than 20%.

The proposals were submitted by 5,450 unique investigators from across the world, representing 52 countries, 46 states, and 3 U.S. territories. Fifty-four proposals were led by Canadian PIs and 527 by PIs from ESA member countries. Requesting almost 36,500 hours of observing time, the call was oversubscribed by a factor of 7.3. The median proposal requested 19.2 hours. The most popular science category was “Galaxies and the Intergalactic Medium,” closely followed by “Exoplanets and Disks”.

Spectroscopy continues to be a highly requested observing mode, garnering 73.6% of the requested time, with the remainder requested for imaging. The most requested instrument, by proposal, is NIRSpec, followed by MIRI, NIRCam, and NIRISS. The Cycle 2 call invited joint proposals with other observatories, and 36 proposals were received requesting joint time with ALMA, Chandra, Keck, Hubble, or XMM.

The JWST Time Allocation Panels and Committee will now convene to evaluate the submitted proposals, with the final selection circulated to the community by May 10, 2023. The Cycle 3 Call for Proposals will be released on August 15, 2023, with a deadline of October 27, 2023.