The Broader Impacts Network: A national infrastructure model

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The America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2010 (ACRA) requires NSF to include the broader impacts criterion in its proposal review. Furthermore, ACRA suggested that NSF encourage "institutions...to develop and provide, either as individual institutions or in partnerships thereof, appropriate training and programs to assist Foundation-funded principal investigators...in achieving the goals of the Broader Impacts Review Criterion." ACRA also requires that investigators applying for NSF funding must show institutional support for their broader impacts plan, and the legislation included provision for broader impacts support to originate at the home institution or "another institution or organization with relevant expertise." To begin to meet these needs on a nation-wide scale, this Broader Impacts Network (BIN) Project will bring institutions together under a national umbrella to share information, tools and resources and to avoid duplication of effort. The project has two goals: to create and cultivate a national Broader Impacts Network infrastructure and to strengthen and grow the broader impacts infrastructure at the local institution level. The broader impact of the BIN Project support the aims of the project and are directly related to the scope of the project. The BIN Project will disseminate information on best practices and effective tools for broader impacts to members of the national community through an active listserv, a monthly newsletter, and a broader impacts website. A newsletter, as well as a section of the broader impacts website, will also be created for individual investigators. Information on this section of the website and the newsletter will be tailored to the needs of individual investigators, such as training information, funding deadlines, and examples of successful broader impacts activities. The project will also support the annual Broader Impacts Infrastructure Summit. The Summit has three goals: bring broader impacts infrastructure professionals together to share best practices, ideas, and challenges; set the course for the future of broader impacts infrastructure support; and provide the NSF with feedback regarding the realities of supporting broader impacts at the institutional and principal investigator levels. The National Science Board has recognized that meaningful assessment of broader impacts activities may best be achieved at the institutional level instead of at the individual project level. To that end, the University of Missouri will pilot an institutional tool for aggregating broader impacts evaluation that has potential for national implementation. The specific deliverables of this project are a BIN website, monthly newsletter, broader impacts community listserv, and a pilot evaluation tool for aggregating broader impacts activities at the institution level that can be implemented nationally. Broader Impacts Networks that leverage existing resources and avoid duplication of effort will help researchers with addressing the broader impacts criterion in unique and creative ways.This award is co-funded by the Genetic Mechanisms and Molecular Biophysics Clusters in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.