Who This Is For
This is likely for you! Anyone at any career stage who finds themselves developing a broader impacts section wondering what to write or how to advance ongoing societal and broader impacts. Could be an early career faculty working toward an NSF CAREER Award or teams looking to design societal impact as part of a project, initiative, or grant proposal.
You might be at an emerging research institution where NSF proposals are newer territory. You might be at a major research university with plenty of support you haven’t found yet. Either way, the feeling is the same: you know your research matters, but articulating how it connects to society feels like a different language.
No matter where you’re starting, I’ve tried to put together my experiences designing STEM Partnerships to help you.
The Partnership Moment
You’re sitting at your desk, the NSF solicitation open in one tab, a half-empty broader impacts section in another. You’ve reread the merit review criteria three times. You’ve searched “NSF broader impacts examples” and found lists that somehow don’t quite fit your work.
Maybe you’ve talked to colleagues who shrug and say they just partner with a local school. Maybe you’ve inherited a template from someone who got funded, but their research is in a completely different area. Maybe your institution has Broader Impacts and Engagement workshops, but they conflict with your teaching schedule.
You know there are resources out there. Hopefully you’ve heard of organizations like ARIS (Advancing Research in Society), ASTC (Science Centers), and resources like the Broader Impacts Design portal. There are so many options for community partnerships, industry connections, and connecting to economic development agencies. But you’re not plugged into those networks, and right now the deadline is approaching.
So you start listing activities. “The PI will mentor undergraduate students.” “The project will develop educational materials.” “Results will be disseminated at conferences.”
It’s not wrong. But something feels off.
