NSF-22-587: IUSE / Professional Formation of Engineers: Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (IUSE/PFE: RED) – Office of Research Initiatives and Facilities

Slots: 2. An eligible institution may submit a maximum of two proposals (e.g. 2 RED Innovation Track or 1 RED A&I Track and 1 RED Two-year Track).

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Friday, June 3, 2022, 5pm PT

LOI: Not required.

External Deadline: July 18, 2022

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: 6 to 9

Anticipated Award Amount: 4 to 12 million

Who May Serve as PI: For all tracks, the Principal Investigator must be a department chair/head (or equivalent) to provide leadership for the change process. For the RED Two-Year Track, the PI must be at a two-year institution. Additionally, there must be a RED team that includes (at a minimum) an expert in engineering education research who can provide guidance on evidence-based practices, and an organizational change expert who can advise on strategies for developing a culture of change and on strategies for creating meaningful collective ownership of the effort among faculty, students, and staff. The engineering education and organizational change experts may be at different institutions from the proposing institution. Funding for these experts at other institutions may be supported as consultants, through a subaward, or through a separately submitted collaborative proposal.

Link to Award: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22587/nsf22587.htm

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Office of Research Application Portal: https://orif.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Note: The portal requires information about the PIs and Co-PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#, Gender, and Ethnicity. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.

Purpose

The goal of the RED program is to catalyze revolutionary, not incrementally reformist, changes to the education of the next generation of engineers. Revolutionary means radically, suddenly, or completely new; producing fundamental, structural change; or going outside of or beyond existing norms and principles. The complex problems facing society in the 21^st Century, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand changes to the way engineers are educated and the integration of new modes of learning for engineering students [1]. For example, solving the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenges will require engineers who not only have deep technical knowledge, but also an understanding of the societal and global contexts in which those problems occur [2]. Obstacles to change that have been cited include underlying departmental and curricular structures, faculty reward systems, and faculty development. Among the common challenges facing engineering departments are how to weave both technical and professional skills throughout the curriculum, including skills defined by the ABET outcomes; how to promote and incentivize faculty engagement in the change process; and how to create cultures of inclusion that are welcoming to students and faculty of all types. Revolutionary change is needed in the structure of departments and the way students are educated to meet these challenges.

The RED program is intended to address the holistic formation of engineers. Engineering has many unique aspects that differ from other STEM disciplines. Engineering undergraduate programs prepare students for professional practice; in engineering, the BS degree provides eligibility to qualify for the Professional Engineer license [3]. Furthermore, in the high-tech environment upon which the global economy is based, the perennial debate about workforce shortages of engineers requires a more precise understanding of dynamic industry needs and of the abilities of departments to address them. Therefore, NSF is taking a holistic look at how engineers are being prepared for lifelong careers in technical and socio-technical professions. The RED program seeks to respond to the call from different stakeholders (e.g., industry, the public, government, and the profession itself) for professional formation of engineers with a broad set of professional abilities. Professional Formation of Engineers (PFE) refers to the formal and informal processes and value systems through which people become engineers. This includes the ethical responsibility of practicing engineers to sustain and grow the profession in order to improve quality of life for all people. The RED program also seeks to address the fact that the percentages of persons from underrepresented groups entering into and remaining in the practice of engineering are still unacceptably low, impacting the future health of the national workforce.

RED Innovation track: The RED Innovation track supports projects that involve radically, suddenly, or completely new approaches and action; producing fundamental, structural change; and that go outside of or beyond existing norms and principles. Innovations in similar departments across multiple institutions is particularly encouraged. This track has two goals:

Generate new knowledge on best practices for meaningfully and thoughtfully incorporating into the middle two years at four-year institutions and technical core of the engineering curriculum oft-neglected “professional skills” (i.e. 21^st Century skills, design, communication, teamwork, historical and contemporary social context, lifelong learning, and ethics). Changes in the middle two years need to be integrated with freshman and senior experiences in order to form an unbroken sequenced thread through the curriculum so that the process of professional formation deepens and strengthens as students move through engineering programs.
Generate new knowledge on how to transform the departmental cultures to be environments that are inclusive, innovative, equitable and supportive of faculty, faculty development to support cultural change, and build new department structures and cultures through innovative practices and policies that support significant holistic professional formation.

Strategies should be developed with impact on the student as the focus. Proposed efforts must be grounded in sound educational theory and work to enable a continuous progression of professional formation through the four-year experience. Efforts should address 21^st Century T-shaped skills (i.e., cross-disciplinary breadth), and they should be aligned with stakeholder expectations.

RED A&I Track: The RED A&I track support projects that use evidence-based and evidence-generating change strategy approaches and actions that are adapted to the local context. The goal of this track is to:

Generate new knowledge related to the adaptation of proven change strategies and actions in a new context.

RED Two-Year Track: The RED Two-Year track supports projects that involve radically new approaches among multiple two-year institutions that result in structural changes beyond existing norms and principles. The goal of this track is to:

Generate new knowledge on best practices for preparing engineers and technologists for future professions and integrating professional skills into the curriculum at two-year institutions through supporting partnerships. The focus is expected to be on students who would transfer to accredited four-year engineering or engineering-technology institutions.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.