Accelerating the Nation's Research Capacity through an EPSCoR Hub

About This Grant

EPSCoR states and territories make significant contributions to the national and global STEM research enterprise. This project aims to further coordinate and enhance these contributions through fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing across NSF EPSCoR investments, resulting in increased research and innovation capacity within EPSCoR states and territories. Led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), project goals span three major areas. First, AAAS will host two national EPSCoR Summits. Second, AAAS will develop, maintain, and coordinate an electronic EPSCoR Hub to disseminate relevant research capacity material and facilitate collaboration across all twenty-eight EPSCoR jurisdictions and beyond. Third, AAAS will host interactive workshops for project personnel and prospective awardees, and also manage a blog series to share discoveries, resources, and best practices. This project aims to serve national interest by strengthening and expanding the research capacity and collaborations of organizations within and across NSF EPSCoR jurisdictions. The outcomes of these efforts will support national priorities of economic growth, national security, and sustained U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Utilizing a Networked Improvement Community framework, this project will focus on synthesizing and disseminating knowledge, strategies, policies, and practices that directly enhance the research capacity of organizations and individuals in EPSCoR jurisdictions. Project activities will include a study and review of the needs and challenges of EPSCoR jurisdictions, implementation plan for leveraging prior findings and improvement science to address these challenges, and collaborative structure for developing and disseminating interventions that address identified potential barriers to research capacity building in EPSCoR jurisdictions. This project will convene key stakeholders from EPSCoR jurisdictions and beyond, including EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement principal investigators and project personnel, industry partners, and academic leaders across all disciplines and regions. Project outcomes have potential to expand the research capacity across jurisdictions, facilitate the sharing and dissemination of research, data, and promising practices, and increase participation across all disciplines, institution types, and organizations involved in the STEM enterprise. By supporting EPSCoR jurisdictions through the knowledge sharing of evidence-based research and promising practices, this project will bolster innovation, research capacity, education, and workforce development across these regions and the nation. This project is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). EPSCoR pursues a mission to enhance the research competitiveness of targeted jurisdictions by strengthening STEM capacity and capability through a broad portfolio of investments from talent development to local infrastructure. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.