Compass Pilot

指南针试点的目的是探索机会，以增加代表性不足的群体获得和参与联邦种子基金项目的机会。科技创新在解决社会挑战方面发挥着关键作用，例如医疗保健差距、环境问题和经济不平等。然而，那些受这些社会挑战影响最大的人往往从美国联邦种子基金项目中受益较少。事实上，这些项目的申请者中来自弱势群体的比例低于他们在美国人口中的比例。多个联邦资助者已经在推广工作上进行了投资，但缺乏来自代表性不足群体的创新者获得种子基金和研究项目仍然是一个持续存在的重大问题。历史和体制上的不公正导致了代际贫富差距、接受高等教育的机会有限以及社会网络的隔离，使一些人无法拥有追求科学技术资金的范围和手段。在资助项目的推广、申请和审查过程中的结构性偏见也可能对获取造成重大障碍。来自不同群体的申请人甚至可能不知道这些项目，因为有限的外联，当他们知道这些机会时，他们可能无法获得背景信息和支持，以驾驭如此复杂的过程。虽然这并不是所有试图将创新推向市场的不同团队的障碍的详尽列表，但这些观察结果为所建议的工作提供了动力。这些问题发生在系统层面，但有针对性和共同设计的举措-这是指南针试点计划的预期产出-可以随着时间的推移产生重大差异。虽然其他项目旨在将更多代表性不足的人群纳入现有项目，但该项目侧重于与代表性不足的社区共同设计工具和解决方案。指南针试点项目汇集了三种私营部门创新方法的最佳实践，即以人为本的设计、精益影响设计和敏捷开发，为规划提供种子基金。项目团队由来自公共政策实验室（PPL）和constructstudio的工作人员组成，将与来自不同团体的创新者和主题专家合作，遵循PPL以人为中心的设计方法，其中包括敏捷开发最佳实践。在开始时，项目团队将与创新者和其他利益相关者一起进行定性研究，以定义现有的挑战，头脑风暴初步想法，并确定潜在工具的优先级。然后，该团队将与来自代表性不足群体的创新者组成的“共同设计队列”共同设计工具。接下来，这些工具将由其他创新者组成的“试点队列”进行试点，并使用精益影响方法进行评估，以评估有效性和价值。最后，试点经验将被纳入最后一套工具。PPL和construct的分阶段方法已经在一系列服务设计项目中进行了测试，它将允许团队遵循一个系统的过程，同时也对参与者的反馈做出反应。团队将在迭代周期中与利益相关者合作，而不是在一开始就预测最终的产出是什么，通过这种循环，可以发现并改进干预措施。这一过程确保最终产出植根于研究过程中产生的需求和机会，并与历史上代表性不足的群体的创业创新者共同设计。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The intention of the Compass Pilot is to explore opportunities that will increase access to and participation in federal seed fund programs by underrepresented groups. Scientific and technical innovation plays a critical role in addressing societal challenges, such as healthcare disparities, environmental issues, and economic inequalities. Yet those most affected by these societal challenges tend to benefit less from U.S. federal seed fund programs. Indeed, a smaller proportion of applicants to these programs come from underrepresented groups than is relative to their share of the U.S. population. Multiple federal funders have invested in outreach efforts, but the lack of innovators from underrepresented groups accessing seed fund and research programs remains a persistent and significant issue. Historical and systemic injustices have led to generational wealth gaps, limited access to higher education, and segregated social networks, preventing some from having the scope and means to pursue funding in science and technology. Structural biases within funding programs’ outreach, application, and review processes may also present significant barriers to access. Applicants from diverse groups may not even be aware of these programs because of limited outreach, and when they do learn of these opportunities, they may not have access to the contextual information and support required to navigate such complex processes. While this is not an exhaustive list of all the barriers for diverse teams attempting to bring their innovations to market, these observations provide the impetus for the proposed work. These issues occur at a systemic level, but targeted and co-designed initiatives — which are the intended outputs of the Compass Pilot - can make significant differences over time. Though other projects are aimed at bringing more under-represented populations into existing programs, this project is focused on co-designing tools and solutions with underrepresented communities. The Compass Pilot brings together the best practices of three private sector innovation approaches human-centered design, lean impact design, and agile development — to seed fund programming. The project team, comprising staff from the Public Policy Lab (PPL) and ConstructEd Studio, will collaborate with innovators from diverse groups and subject-matter experts following PPL’s human-centered design methodology, which includes agile development best practices. At the outset, the project team will engage in qualitative research with innovators and other stakeholders to define existing challenges, brainstorm preliminary ideas, and prioritize potential tools. The team will then co-design tools with a “co-design cohort” of innovators from underrepresented groups. Next, these tools will be piloted by a “pilot cohort” of additional innovators and evaluated, using lean impact methods, to assess efficacy and value. Lastly, pilot learnings will be incorporated into a final set of tools. PPL and ConstructEd’s phased approach, which has been tested across a range of service design projects, will allow the team to follow a systematic process while also being responsive to participants’ feedback. Rather than predicting what the final outputs will be at the outset, the team will work with stakeholders in iterative cycles through which interventions are discovered and refined along the way. This process ensures that final outputs are rooted in the needs and opportunities that arise during research, co-designed with entrepreneurial innovators from historically underrepresented groups.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.