Accelerating the nation's research capacity through an epscor hub

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Office of Integrative Activities awarded $2.74 million to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) under the Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) beginning July 1, 2025 and concluding June 30, 2028. The grant supports AAAS's leadership of a coordinated hub initiative designed to strengthen research capacity across the 28 NSF Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCOR) jurisdictions. AAAS will deliver three primary services: hosting two national EPSCOR summits to convene stakeholder organizations; developing and maintaining an electronic EPSCOR Hub to disseminate research capacity materials and facilitate knowledge sharing across jurisdictions; and hosting interactive workshops and managing a blog series to share best practices, resources, and discoveries among project personnel and prospective awardees.

Operating within a networked improvement community framework, AAAS will synthesize and disseminate knowledge, strategies, policies, and practices to enhance research capacity building in EPSCOR jurisdictions. The project includes comprehensive needs assessments of EPSCOR organizations, development of implementation plans leveraging improvement science methodologies, and creation of collaborative structures to identify and address barriers to research capacity development. These coordinated activities aim to strengthen and expand research and innovation capacity across EPSCOR states and territories, supporting national priorities in economic growth, national security, and U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Abstract

Epscor states and territories make significant contributions to the national and global stem research enterprise. This project aims to further coordinate and enhance these contributions through fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing across NSF epscor investments, resulting in increased research and innovation capacity within epscor states and territories. Led by the american association for the advancement of science (aaas), project goals span three major areas. First, aaas will host two national epscor summits. Second, aaas will develop, maintain, and coordinate an electronic epscor hub to disseminate relevant research capacity material and facilitate collaboration across all twenty-eight epscor jurisdictions and beyond. Third, aaas will host interactive workshops for project personnel and prospective awardees, and also manage a blog series to share discoveries, resources, and best practices. This project aims to serve national interest by strengthening and expanding the research capacity and collaborations of organizations within and across NSF epscor jurisdictions. The outcomes of these efforts will support national priorities of economic growth, national security, and sustained U.S. Leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem). Utilizing a networked improvement community framework, this project will focus on synthesizing and disseminating knowledge, strategies, policies, and practices that directly enhance the research capacity of organizations and individuals in epscor jurisdictions. Project activities will include a study and review of the needs and challenges of epscor jurisdictions, implementation plan for leveraging prior findings and improvement science to address these challenges, and collaborative structure for developing and disseminating interventions that address identified potential barriers to research capacity building in epscor jurisdictions. This project will convene key stakeholders from epscor jurisdictions and beyond, including epscor research infrastructure improvement principal investigators and project personnel, industry partners, and academic leaders across all disciplines and regions. Project outcomes have potential to expand the research capacity across jurisdictions, facilitate the sharing and dissemination of research, data, and promising practices, and increase participation across all disciplines, institution types, and organizations involved in the stem enterprise. By supporting epscor jurisdictions through the knowledge sharing of evidence-based research and promising practices, this project will bolster innovation, research capacity, education, and workforce development across these regions and the nation. This project is funded by the U.S. National science foundation established program to stimulate competitive research (epscor). Epscor pursues a mission to enhance the research competitiveness of targeted jurisdictions by strengthening stem capacity and capability through a broad portfolio of investments from talent development to local infrastructure. 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.- subawards are not planned for this award.