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Methods and sources

How we counted weekend deadlines

Every figure in The weekend deadline problem is computed by a script from advance.to's own listings each time the site is built. Here's exactly how.

By advance.to · Snapshot 5 Nov 2026

Snapshot and the open rule

The snapshot date is 5 Nov 2026, the day the site was last built. A listing counts as open if it's in advance.to's data and its deadline is on or after the snapshot date. That gives 165 open opportunities. Of those, 112 have a fixed deadline date, 32 are rolling (no deadline) and 21 have a date not yet confirmed. Rolling and TBC listings are excluded from every weekend figure.

Each listing is checked against the organiser's page and shows the date we last verified it (see how we verify).

How the weekday is worked out

We take the deadline date as the organiser publishes it, in the organiser's stated time zone (or local time, if none is given), and take the day of the week of that date. We don't convert to UK time for the headline figures, because the organiser's calendar day is what they chose.

  • Midnight at the start of a day: a close at 00:00 or 12:00 AM is the end of the previous day, so we count the previous weekday.
    • GenHacks: listed for 26 Dec 2026 at 12:00 AM, counted as the end of the day before.
  • AoE (Anywhere on Earth, UTC−12): counted on the stated date. 23:59 AoE on a Sunday is a Sunday deadline even though it's Monday morning in Europe.
  • Weekday names in notes: we recheck any note that names a weekday against the date.
    • Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life: funded PhD studentships (Autumn 2027) (12 Jan 2027): the organiser's note says "Documents by email no later than 4pm, Monday 12 Jan 2027". We use the date.
  • Multi-stage calls: we use the next deadline listed (for example Stage 1 or the letter of intent).

For the "on UK clocks" line, we take the 62 deadlines where the site's time-zone line can read exactly one time and zone, and convert them to Europe/London.

Time-zone classification

We read the deadline note we recorded from the organiser's page and sort it into: AoE; UK time (UK time, GMT, BST); US time (ET, EST, Eastern, PT, PST, Pacific); CET/CEST (including "Munich time"); UTC; Other (IST, GMT+8, a platform's own clock); "Time, no zone" (a clock time only); or "No time stated".

Caveat: this measures what our deadline notes record, not every word on the organiser's site. An organiser may state the zone elsewhere, such as in an FAQ or the portal, so "no zone stated" means "not in the deadline we recorded".

Limitations

  • Coverage is advance.to's listings, not every AI funding call. It leans towards the UK, Europe, the US and online programmes.
  • Small numbers: 112 deadlines. One hackathon series can move a category's share a lot.
  • It's a snapshot. Deadlines get extended, and the open set changes daily. The site launched at the end of October 2026, so there is no long-run history yet.
  • Competitions that are events (hackathons) close when the event ends, which is often a Sunday. That's real, but it's a different thing from a funder picking a Sunday.

The script

The figures come from weekend() in research/pillar_stats.py, which reads data/opportunities.json via leadmagnet/stats.py. The site build (scripts/build.py → scripts/research.py) runs it on every build, so the page, the fact sheet PDF and the share images always match.

Corrections

Spotted a wrong date or zone? Contact us with the listing and the organiser's page. We fix listings quickly and log changes in the changes log. advance.to isn't affiliated with any organiser. This report isn't financial or legal advice; always confirm deadlines on the organiser's page.