Building an EPSCoR Community for Science and Technology Innovation

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This grant will facilitate participation by Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) jurisdictions in a conference focused on expanding the capacity to impact economic development. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) will use the funds to provide stipends to EPSCoR program staff and their colleagues from jurisdictional economic development and policy offices to attend the State Science and Technology Institute’s (SSTI) annual meeting. Further, AEDC and SSTI will work with an advisory committee of EPSCoR jurisdictions to produce a pre-conference roundtable and a track of sessions within the full conference agenda. This structure will provide opportunities to improve EPSCoR jurisdictions’ impacts by expanding knowledge of others’ activities and building denser professional networks within and across jurisdictions.As a means of strengthening the economic development and research capacity potential of EPSCoR jurisdictions, AEDC will convene EPSCoR stakeholders—including jurisdictional office staff, commercialization and economic development professionals, and policymakers—for the SSTI annual meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas. During the three-day event focused on strengthening innovation economies, AEDC and SSTI will convene multiple sessions of interest to EPSCoR stakeholders, including a track of sessions specifically related to universities’ roles in economic development, and will hold a roundtable specifically for attendees from EPSCoR jurisdictions to discuss how they can more effectively leverage university R&D to generate greater investment in research capacity and economic development outcomes. The conference therefore provides an opportunity to bring together the EPSCoR and economic development practitioner communities to strengthen connections and expand the opportunities for peer learning and discussion, which should translate to improved economic development impacts in EPSCoR jurisdictions. The grant will enable AEDC to create a scholarship program for EPSCoR stakeholders to attend the conference, with scholarship awardees then providing detailed feedback on how the information and connections available at the event may inform future policies or activities in their jurisdiction.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.