NSF IGE Innovation Acceleration Hub

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The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative approaches to STEM graduate education training. Successful IGE projects pilot, test, and validate innovative and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education. The program supports testing of novel models or activities with high potential to enrich and extend the knowledge base on effective graduate education approaches.The goal of the Innovation Acceleration Hub is to accelerate innovation in STEM graduate education by facilitating communications about research activities and outcomes among awardees of the NSF IGE program and providing a robust platform for external stakeholder engagement. Over a five-year period, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) will design, develop, evaluate, and continuously improve an online microsite and comprehensive communication strategy that will foster learning and collaboration among IGE awardees and the broader STEM graduate education community. CGS will leverage its role as an organization with over 500 master’s and doctoral institution members to broaden awareness of outcomes from funded IGE projects and of IGE program opportunities for prospective awardees. Particular emphasis in the Hub communications and outreach strategy is placed on increasing the number and quality of proposals from historically black colleges or universities (HBCUs), minority-serving institutions (MSIs), and other institutions serving underrepresented populations. CGS will foster networks of diverse stakeholders in dialogue about research on innovations in graduate education through activities that collectively have the potential to result in improvements to STEM graduate programs that are institutionalized, systemic, and transformative. The range of activities will include survey and focus group research, website development, workshops, research forums, and other convenings. Data collected by CGS and analyzed from a perspective informed by theoretical frameworks including self-efficacy, collective impact, and cultural-historical activity theories will inform continuous improvement. Results will also contribute to knowledge about how such a "Hub"-based approach can accelerate broader adoption and institutionalization of evidence-based practices and drive innovation across a wide range of institutions, generally, and in STEM graduate education specifically.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.