2017 NSF Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Grantees Conference

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Under the current socioeconomic and political landscape, increased levels of accountability are being faced in many scientific areas. As a result, funding agencies have been paying significant attention to increasing the impact of their research investments. This project will bring together approximately 200 researchers from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division for a meeting to be held in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area in the fall of 2017. During the two-and-a-half-day conference, EEC grantees will have opportunities to collaborate, share promising practices, and learn about state-of-the-art and ongoing efforts that could help them increase the impact of their projects. By having a focus on impact, the proposed conference contributes to the broader conversation to characterize and meaningfully communicate insights about the outcomes of NSF investments in areas such as engineering education research, broadening participation in engineering, and workforce development. Staff from the American Society for Engineering Education will consult with a four-member planning committee, comprising EEC grantees, to plan and organize the meeting. The meeting will include plenary talks and panels, concurrent sessions, poster sessions featuring grantees' projects, and networking sessions. The interactive components of the meeting will be designed and structured to emphasize conscious collaboration and to maximize cross-pollination among grantees. Conference attendees will provide feedback via two mechanisms: (a) immediate post-conference survey, and (b) six-month follow-up survey. ASEE will produce a written summary of the meeting that includes summaries of plenary talks, summary analyses of the relevant breakout discussions (focusing on lessons that can be shared among grantees), and results from the evaluation survey. The proposed meeting provides a cost- and time-effective opportunity for EEC grantees to share their research, discuss current directions and challenges, and explore new opportunities and partnerships for future work. This meeting also represents an opportunity for the EEC community to draw upon knowledge that is currently tacit within individual projects, as well as highlight emerging knowledge about the characterization and effective communication of project impacts within and outside of the engineering education ecosystem.