Collaborative Research: The PIPELINE Network

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The PIPELINE Network project will significantly enhance physics education by developing and evaluating methods to incorporate workforce-relevant skills and activities in the student experience. The majority of physics graduates at all degree levels will become scientists and innovators working in the private sector, yet very little of the knowledge they gain while earning their degree specifically prepares them for these roles (for example, few physics programs emphasize real-world applications of scientific concepts, communication skills, or basic business concepts, all of which are important to successful private sector careers). Adding workforce-relevant learning to the discipline will attract a larger and more diverse student body to major in physics, and by extension improve the quality of the future STEM workforce. The PIPELINE project will bring together efforts of six institutions to create and document new approaches to teaching innovation and entrepreneurship in physics which can be shared with the broader community. The project will also advance our understanding of how these practices affect student and faculty attitudes towards innovation and entrepreneurship in physics.The goals of the PIPELINE network are to build students' workforce confidence, improve physics faculty attitudes toward private sector careers, foster better integration of academic and industrial sectors, promote innovation in the physics discipline, and build a framework for wider adoption of physics innovation and entrepreneurship practices. The project will accomplish these by implementing physics innovation and entrepreneurship (PIE) approaches at member institutions during each year of the project, revising approaches between iterations, and finally documenting and disseminating curriculum. Most importantly, PIPELINE will develop surveys and interview protocols which will investigate the link between PIE experiences and student and faculty attitudes about innovation and entrepreneurship, and which can be used by other departments for gauging, monitoring, and improving institutional change around PIE. These research findings and tools will provide insights and utility that go beyond the immediate partner institutions, and live on beyond the duration of the project. PIPELINE will generate a core network of experienced PIE practitioners, a readily accessible body of tested PIE curricula deliberately varied in scope to fit unique needs and challenges of future adopters, and robust insight into the obstacles to PIE implementation and how future adopters might address them.