Connecting nuances of foreign status, professional networks, and higher education outcomes in STEM disciplines over time

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A team of researchers from Arizona State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Arkansas will investigate factors affecting the retention of foreign STEM higher education faculty in the US and those factors leading to their being more productive members of the workforce and advancing STEM in this country. In an era of global competition for academic STEM talent, and despite the high representation of foreign STEM faculty in US post-secondary institutions, significant research and data gaps have limited our understanding of how multiple dimensions of foreign background and experience, professional and collaborative networks, and key faculty outcomes are related. This project will help to address gaps through syntheses and new analyses of existing datasets and the piloting of a novel survey. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances the fundamental research literature on STEM learning and training.The study will advance research on foreign faculty by conceptualizing a broader notion of foreign status that goes beyond nationality of birth and education to include cultural characteristics, family composition and location, local community engagement, and international professional experience.  The project scope will focus on the analysis and integration of extant data, and in so doing make clearer the value and limitations of those datasets. Methodologically, the project will use an innovative social network design to collect and integrate various national datasets to capture and analyze the relationships among a) dimension of foreign status; b) professional network structure, cultural composition and resources; and c) work history, satisfaction, mobility, mentoring, and productivity, among others. The study will be conducted in three integrated parts: 1) expanded analysis of existing NSF-sponsored survey datasets to investigate how foreign status and network structure and outcomes are related; 2) collection, merging and analysis of extant scientist data to determine gaps and complementarities critical for longer-term data collection; and 3) initial data collection to develop new survey designs and validate new metrics. Study findings will be relevant for the design of interventions to improve the integration, satisfaction, retention, and productivity of foreign faculty for the long term competitiveness of the nation.