Does National Science Foundation Fund Extension Ideas?

Rick Koelsch, Associate Dean for UNL Extension

The North Central Agriculture and Natural Resource Program Leaders recently met with NSF program directors from Biological Science and Education and Human Resources to learn about opportunities for Extension faculty within NSF.  Our question to our NSF hosts was “Is there a fit for Extension within NSF funding priorities?”  Our NSF hosts responded “NSF supports all fields of science, except biomedical areas…Agriculture is science.” and “NSF supports science education and research…Extension is science education.”  Those comments provided a good starting point in understanding how that might occur.

NSF uses two fundamental criteria to guide grant application development and review processes:

Intellectual Merit or the potential to advance knowledge; and

Broader Impacts or the potential to benefit society.

Intellectual Merit is generally weighted more heavily than Broader Impact by most NSF review panels and program directors. However, substantial variability exists in quality of proposals for contributing to Broader Impacts. An NSF proposal with a well-planned approach for achieving Broader Impact and faculty with skills in implementing Broader Impact can lend extra value to proposals with strong Intellectual Merit, often separating out those that are funded. Review panels are advised to ask five questions relative to the review of a proposal based upon the Broader Impacts criteria:

1.       How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning?

2.       How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, geographic, etc.)?

3.       To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?

4.       Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?

5.       What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

These five questions provide faculty a framework in which to design a "Broader Impacts" program that may be viewed favorably by NSF review panels.  Notes from our NSF hosts and from NSF website information on Broader Impacts suggest some examples that may fit the NSF vision of Broader Impacts are summarized in the Table below.

 

A few take home messages from our visit with NSF:

• Science education of K-12 and undergraduates is central to the NSF mission.
• Scientific Merit still drives NSF’s interest in a proposal.  Partner with research faculty actively pursuing NSF funding opportunities.
• "Broader Impacts"  science focus should be closely connected to the scientific focus of the research proposed by the NSF proposal. 
• Projects that propose innovative methods of producing Broader Impact are good. Projects that invest is helping others replicate those innovative methods are even better.
• Projects that apply innovative methods for producing Broader Impact are considered.  Projects that evaluate and publish the impact of those innovative methods rise to the top.
• Present your ideas using the NSF vernacular and avoid our own Extension vernacular (e.g. “Broader Impacts” vs. “Extension Engagement”).

Article developed based upon conversations on May 1, 2013 with Steve Ellis and David Campbell, National Science Foundation program leaders, and several web resources addressing Broader Impact from the NSF web site (http://www.nsf.gov/) including Empowering the Nation Through Discovery and Innovation – NSF Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years FY 2011-2016 (http://www.nsf.gov/news/strategicplan/nsfstrategicplan_2011_2016.pdf).

Notes from NSF on Broader Impacts Approaches

Ideas for Extension Application

Training and mentoring undergraduate students to be future professionals.   Offering national or international summer research or outreach programs for middle and high school students, high school teachers, or undergraduate students including many from underrepresented groups.   Research and education activities targeting students from underrepresented groups.

Summer internships for undergraduates with practical field experiences or on-farm research.   Target high school students (including under-represented students) in demonstration or on-farm research projects addressing locally grown food production.  I Design STEM education curriculum related to scientific focus of  an NSF proposal and pilot this emerging science in youth programs.  Is this STEM curriculum unique? Improve clarity of understanding of the emerging science among youth?

Seminars, workshops and symposia targeting society’s knowledge of emerging or controversial applications of science.	Community workshops on local foods, modern agricultural technologies, pre-harvest food safety, animal care, or other science focused topics. Producer workshops on science behind critical agricultural issues such as weed and insect resistance to seed traits or human health implications for anti-biotic use in food animals.
Establishing research and education collaborations with faculty from minority-serving institutions, community colleges, undergraduate institutions.	Partner with community college for Hispanic worker training on latest science in food safety, animal health care, other topics for improving employee on-the-job application of science.
Writing articles, creating websites enhanced by engaging animations and video, or working with science centers on new exhibits on emerging research or science application for non-technical audiences	Partner UNL Extension’s Beef Mobile Science Lab  with animal or veterinary science researchers demonstrating applications of their research Science Center display on the challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People Sustainably.
Assisting journalists with their stories on technical topics	Partner with a Omaha World Herald reporter or Nebraska Farmer editor to present scientific issues such as genetically modified crops, weed and insect resistance to crop protection technologies, or impacts of agricultural water use on aquifers.
Forming start-up companies for disseminating new technologies	Economic development or entrepreneurship faculty partner with researchers as new technologies are introduced into a business.
Developing new art forms or delivery approaches for communicating science to wider audiences.	Art forms?  I need help here. Delivery approaches?  ·   Use of Twitter and mobile apps to reach farmers and the rest of society in real time. ·     On-line agricultural science courses for farm employee continuing education or lay audience understanding of agricultural science issues. ·   Leading/mentoring a group of researchers in a successful social media conversation on emerging science issues. ·   Use our local networks (e.g. Master Gardeners, Corn Grower’s Association) to build a network of citizen scientists for field data collection around scientific questions.