Broadening Participation: 2022-2024 MPS Workshops for Young Investigators

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

This award will support annual workshops in 2022-2024 for new and future PIs in the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS). The two-full-day workshop for 2022 will be held June 13-14 at the Westin Alexandria Old Town in Alexandria, VA, and the meeting website is available at this URL: https://reg.conferences.dce.ufl.edu/Physics. The conferences for 2023 and 2024 would be held in June of each year at the National Science Foundation (NSF) headquarters in Alexandria, VA. The main goals of the workshop are two-fold: (1) to provide PIs who have just received their first award or who are attempting to obtain funding from the MPS programs with valuable information and advice on the policies, procedures, and opportunities available at NSF, with an emphasis on recruiting attendees from underrepresented minority groups, and (2) to train a pool of future reviewers for NSF in the designated group. The scope of this workshop is in line with the mission of NSF Diversity Initiatives: To recruit, retain, and develop a diverse, high-performing workforce that draws from all segments of society and values fairness, diversity, and inclusion to promote the progress of science. The workshop program is composed of two main parts: informational presentations by NSF Program Directors and invited speakers and mock panel review activities. The topics of presentations include (1) Individual investigator programs in MPS; (2) NSF funded Centers and Facilities and Special programs; (3) NSF policies and procedures; (4) Broader impacts of research; (5) Preparing successful proposals; (6) Research integrity. Over two days, the participants will be engaged in the activities emulating the full processes of panel review in breakout sessions guided by Program Directors. This proposal also includes an assessment plan to track the participants and to evaluate the efficacy of the workshop training through the success rate in securing funding and participation in the review process of the participants. 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.