27 NSF INCLUDES Program awards will help leverage diversity in STEM to maintain the nation's leadership in innovation.

Today, U.S industries, universities and research centers face 21st-century challenges. They need skilled STEM workers to grow the economy, secure the national defense and advance other national priorities. Encouraging entry and participation in STEM fields is crucial to this goal.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced the issue of 27 new awards through its NSF INCLUDES program. The awarded programs are aimed at enhancing U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discoveries and innovations specifically through a commitment to diversity and inclusion.
NSF INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) is designed to create paths into these crucial STEM fields for underrepresented populations, expanding the nation’s leadership and talent pools. Like other programs in NSF’s Broadening Participation portfolio, NSF INCLUDES seeks to improve the U.S. STEM enterprise by leveraging the benefits of the nation’s diversity.
The 27 new Design and Development Launch Pilots, funded through two-year, $300,000 grants, will work to develop blueprints for collaborative change among a set of public-private partners in order to address broadening participation challenges. Recipient institutions include a number of major universities, as well as other educational and STEM groups across the country.
This focus on uniting a wide variety of collaborators to generate pioneering solutions to persistent problems is a key feature of NSF INCLUDES. These pilot projects will create an infrastructure that enables large-scale coordination, fueling future innovations in broadening STEM participation.
“Broadening participation in STEM is necessary for the United States to retain its position as the world’s preeminent source of scientific innovation,” said NSF director France Córdova. “The National Science Foundation has a long history of working to address difficult challenges by creating the space for innovative solutions. NSF INCLUDES breaks new ground by providing a sustained commitment to collaborative change with the goal of bringing STEM opportunities to more people and communities across the country.”
NSF INCLUDES will invest in alliances that scale these efforts to broaden STEM participation among underrepresented groups, including women, persons with disabilities, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, people from rural areas and those facing socioeconomic challenges. Multi-year NSF INCLUDES alliances will engage partners from private and corporate philanthropy, industry, non-profits, higher education, K-12 school systems, federal agencies and scientific professional societies, and any other organizations with an interest in and passion for STEM.
The NSF INCLUDES approach builds on a growing body of scientific research suggesting that complex problems are best addressed through collective impact or networked communities focused on finding solutions through common goals and shared resources. This strategy marks a shift away from successful efforts that have been locally focused, and toward activities that will have an impact on a national scale as institutions, professional societies and the scientific community cooperate and share information and effective strategies.
The 2017 project titles and recipient institutions are:
- Water Network for Team STEM (WaNTS), Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
- Aligning for Impact: Computer Science Pathways Across Contexts, Georgia Department of Education
- Growing STEM engagement and participation in Native Pacific Islander communities, University of Guam
- Southeastern Compact for Inclusive Student Transitions in Engineering and Physical Sciences (SCI-STEPS), Vanderbilt University
- BEST BET: Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training – Beginning Enhancement Track, Boston University
- Diversifying Access to Urban Universities for Students in STEM Fields, University of Pittsburgh
- Sustainability Teams Empower and Amplify Membership in STEM (S-TEAMS), Montclair State University
- Building on Strengths: A Design and Development Launch Pilot to Broaden Participation in Mathematics, Iowa State University
- The Alabama Alliance for an Inclusive Middle Grades Computer Science Preparation through Makerspaces in the Alabama Black Belt Region, Tuskegee University
- IM STEM, National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity Educational Foundation
- Indigenous Math Circles Communities, Kansas State University
- Education for Minorities to Effectively Raise Graduation and Employment in STEM (EMERGE in STEM), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
- Scholars from Under-Represented Groups in Engineering and the Social Sciences: Minority SURGE Capacity in Disasters, University of Nebraska Omaha
- American Indian Traditional Science Experience, University of Montana
- Leadership and iSTEAM for Females in Elementary school (LiFE): An Integrated Approach to Increase the Number of Women Pursuing Careers in STEM, New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Advanced Manufacturing Partnerships (AMP): Broadening Participation in New Hampshire’s Workforce, University of New Hampshire
- Statewide Consortium: Supporting Underrepresented Populations in Precalculus by Organizational Redesign toward Engineering Diversity (SC:SUPPORTED), Clemson University
- Diversifying Future Leadership in the Professoriate in Computing at Research Universities, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
- Increasing Minority Presence within Academia through Continuous Training (IMPACT), Georgia Tech Applied Research Corporation
- Ecology Plus: Broadening Pathways to Ecological Careers through a Collective Impact Approach, Ecological Society of America
- Expanding Diversity in Energy and Environmental Sustainability, Delaware State University
- Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYS) Program to Bridge inclusion in Post-Secondary Education Through the Sciences, University of Maine
- Building a Network for Education and Employment in Environmental Stewardship of Indigenous Lands, University of Colorado Denver
- Supporting Pacific Indigenous Computing Excellence (SPICE), University of Texas at Austin
- Engineers from Day One: Fostering Identity to Promote Entry and Persistence in Engineering for First Generation Students, Arizona State University
- Sustaining STEM Workforce Diversity in Emerging Regional Technology Hubs, University of Nevada, Reno
- American STEM Alliance Network Improvement Community, American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences
NSF INCLUDES is one of NSF’s “10 Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments,” a set of research agendas that identify areas for future investment at the frontiers of science and engineering.
To learn more, visit the National Science Foundation website.
Source: National Science Foundation News