CALL FOR PROPOSALS: NSF Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE)

Internal Deadline: August 20, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: September 27, 2018

Program Summary
The NSF Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative approaches to STEM graduate education training. The program seeks proposals that explore ways for graduate students in research-based master’s and doctoral degree programs to develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers.
The IGE program will not focus on comprehensive training or foundational research examining how graduate students learn, but rather will promote targeted test-bed efforts that are informed by evidence, including findings from research on learning. Activities proposed as part of the research project may include, but are not limited to, student professional skill development, career preparation and vocational counseling, faculty training, inventive partnerships, international experiences, internships, outreach, virtual networks, and mentoring. In addition, projects should utilize evidence-based strategies to broaden participation of students from diverse backgrounds.

Goals of the IGE Program are to:

  • Catalyze rapid advances in STEM graduate education broadly as well as those responsive to the needs of particular disciplinary and interdisciplinary STEM fields, and
  • Generate the knowledge base needed to inform the development of models as well as their implementation and adaptability.

The IGE Program calls for proposals to:

  • Design, pilot, and test new, innovative and transformative approaches for inclusive STEM graduate education;
  • Examine the potential to extend a successful approach developed in one discipline or context to other disciplines, or transfer an evidence-based approach to a new context; and
  • Develop projects that are informed by learning science and the existing body of knowledge about STEM graduate education.

Award Information
IGE Awards (6 to 10 anticipated in FY 2018) are expected to be up to three (3) years in duration with a total budget between $300,000 and $500,000.

Internal Application Instructions
UCI may participate in no more than 2 proposals.  Participation includes serving as a lead organization on a non-collaborative proposal or as a lead organization, non-lead organization, or subawardee on a collaborative proposal.  Therefore, interested applicants are asked to submit a preliminary application to the Office of Research by August 20, 2018 (via the UCI Review application system), with the following information
For those submitting as a UCI lead:

  • Brief proposal (up to four pages),
  • Preliminary budget,
  • CV or bio-sketch (no more than two pages) of the primary researcher(s),
  • Support letter from the Dean (or the equivalent in units without a Dean).

For those participating as a non-lead:

Do not submit through UCI Review.  Instead, please email OR@research.uci.edu as soon as possible so that we are aware and can plan around the other organization’s internal review process. If we are not informed of non-lead proposals prior to the 8/20 internal deadline, the non-lead proposal risks not being considered as a candidate for one of UCI’s 2 available slots.

If necessary, an ad hoc committee will convene to review applications and make recommendations to the Vice Chancellor for Research on which two proposals should go forward from UCI.  The selected PIs will be notified in time to meet the NSF’s deadline of September 27, 2018 for full proposals.

For the complete NSF guidelines, including detailed information about the NSF IGE program, please refer to https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2017/nsf17585/nsf17585.htm.   Questions about our internal campus review process may be directed to Greg Ruth at greg.ruth@uci.edu or x4-0372.

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