National Science Foundation: Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions (ADVANCE)

Deadline: 15 May 2019

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is seeking applications for its program entitled “Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions (ADVANCE)” to develop systemic approaches to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic STEM careers.

In 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, more than 160 different institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations have received ADVANCE grants totaling over $270M between 2001 and 2016.

Type of Programs

Institutional Transformation (IT): Supports development of innovative organizational change strategies to enhance gender equity in STEM academics in non-profit institutions of higher education.
Adaptation: Supports adaptation and implementation of proven organizational and systemic change strategies for specific issues of gender inequity supported by an analysis of relevant data.
Partnership: Supports projects involving two or more non-profit academic institutions and STEM organizations to undertake systemic change projects to enhance gender equity in STEM academics.

Challenges and Goals

The number of women obtaining science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) doctorate degrees has increased steadily in recent decades.

Research indicates that the marginal participation and advancement of women in STEM is often a function of external systemic factors unrelated to their ability, interest and technical skills, such as:

Implicit and explicit bias.
Organizational constraints of academic institutions.
Differential effects of work and family demands.
Underrepresentation of women, especially women of color, in academic leadership and decision making positions.
Culture and climate of academic organizations.

The goals of the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program are:

To develop systemic approaches to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic STEM careers.
To develop innovative and sustainable ways to promote gender equity that involve both men and women in the STEM academic workforce.
To contribute to the research knowledge base on gender equity and the intersection of gender and other social identities in STEM academic careers.

Advance Strategies

Enhance Institutional Structures
- - Reviewing, revising, and increasing the transparency and effective implementation of recruitment, promotion, and tenure policies.
  - Developing faculty and workplace climate data collection and reporting processes, with data disaggregated by at least demographics and rank, for use in decision-making.
  - Incorporating responsibilities for implementing and upholding best practices for achieving and sustaining equity and diversity into administrative and leadership positions, while also promoting best practices among all faculty.
Work-Life Support
- - Developing and implementing flexible career policies that address life transitions and other needs identified by faculty climate surveys and other data.
  - Developing career support programs to mitigate issues for faculty, such as isolation and solo status.
  - Establishing dual-career hiring policies tailored to the institution and region.
  - Creating structures to train administrators and faculty and to ensure that there are no negative impacts on a faculty’s career for participating in the programs.
Equitable Career Support
- - Establishing formal mentoring structures and providing recognition of service for the time and effort of mentors.
  - Developing unbiased mechanisms to make service, teaching, and resource assignments.
  - Developing broader mechanisms to recognize the wide range of professional excellence of faculty.
  - Providing workshops, training, timely feedback on progress, and coaching on the tenure and promotion processes to all faculty.
  - Implementing leadership development, career coaching, and network building programs.
Empowerment
- - Providing training on effective strategies to reduce the stressors that result in a greater reliance on implicit biases when making decisions, especially in search, promotion, and tenure committees.
  - Creating research-driven tools such as templates, and checklists tailored to institutional decision making processes to mitigate institutionalized gender equity barriers.