National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant for STEM Workforce Development and Low-Income Student Success

*Who May Serve as PI:

For Track 1 (Institutional Capacity Building) and Track 2 (Design and Development: Single Institution) projects, the Principal Investigatormust be a faculty member currently teaching in one of the S-STEM disciplines listed in Section IV.B. who can provide the leadership required to ensure the success of the project. Projects involving more than one department within an institution are eligible, but a single Principal Investigator must accept overall management responsibility. Other members of the S-STEM project leadership and management team may be listed as Co-Principal Investigators.

For Track 3 (Design and Development: Multi-Institutional Consortia) projects, the Principal Investigatormust be a faculty member currently teaching in one of the S-STEM disciplines listed in Section IV.B. or an institutional, educational, or social science researcher who can provide the leadership required to ensure the success of the project. A consortium projectmust have a Principal Investigator who accepts overall management responsibility. Other members of the S-STEM senior project leadership and management team may be listed as Co-Principal Investigators or PIs on collaborative research proposals.

Recognizing that financial aid alone cannot increase retention and graduation in STEM, the program provides awards to Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) to fund scholarships and to advance the adaptation, implementation, and study of effective evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities that support recruitment, retention, transfer (if appropriate), student success, academic/career pathways, and graduation in STEM. The S-STEM program encourages collaborations among different types of partners: Partnerships among different types of institutions; collaborations of STEM faculty and institutional, educational, and social science researchers; and partnerships among institutions of higher education and local business and industry, if appropriate. 

The program seeks: 1) to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need obtaining degrees in STEM and entering the workforce or graduate programs in STEM; 2) to improve the education of future scientists, engineers, and technicians, with a focus on academically talented low-income students; and 3) to generate knowledge to advance understanding of how  factors or evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities affect  the success, retention, transfer, academic/career pathways, and graduation in STEM of low-income students.

The STEM disciplines supported by the S-STEM program include: 

• Biological sciences (except medicine and other clinical fields); 
• Physical sciences (including physics, chemistry, astronomy, and materials science); 
• Mathematical sciences; 
• Computer and information sciences; 
• Geosciences; 
• Engineering; and 
• Technology areas associated with the preceding disciplines (for example, biotechnology, chemical technology, engineering technology, information technology, etc.)

The S-STEM program particularly encourages proposals from 2-year institutions, Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), tribal colleges, and urban public and rural institutions.