A dynamic and highly qualified workforce is vital to maintaining the nation's standard of excellence and global leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
The U.S. National Science Foundation is committed to identifying and addressing barriers to opportunities and innovation in STEM, and to ensuring fairness and integrity in how the agency delivers its programs.
The investments that make up NSF's Broadening Participation Portfolio encourage a wide variety of evidence-based approaches to build STEM education and research capacity, catalyze new areas of STEM research, and develop strategic partnerships and alliances.
Broadening participation is also one of several approaches that can contribute to an NSF-funded project's Broader Impacts (one of the agency's two merit review criteria).
On this page
World-class science is shaped by a wide range of perspectives. Our nation needs every person who is interested in pursuing a STEM career to be able to do so.
What we support
Through its Broadening Participation Portfolio of programs, NSF supports projects that inspire talent and create opportunities across all the nation's communities, jurisdictions and territories. These efforts seek to increase the participation of:
- Individuals traditionally identified as historically underrepresented in the U.S. STEM enterprise.
- Institutions of higher education and informal science education institutions and organizations that serve groups historically underrepresented in STEM.
- Communities, lands and jurisdictions that currently lack resources and opportunities for robust education, workforce development and regional innovation.
Strengthening discovery and innovation
We support partnerships and networks that provide leadership experience and advancement for faculty, staff and students while ensuring institutions have critical infrastructure to create new knowledge and innovations in STEM.
Accelerating student success in STEM
We support efforts that increase preK-12, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral success of individuals, institutions and communities interested in and committed to STEM disciplines and careers.
Expanding the geography of innovation
We support efforts to catalyze and nurture regional innovation clusters through investments in capacity building, partnerships and research infrastructure.
Research on broadening participation in STEM
We support empirical research to better understand individual and compounding factors that enhance or impede the nation's ability to build a dynamic and highly qualified STEM workforce.