Conference: 2023 Engineering CAREER Proposal Workshop

The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) will conduct a three-day virtual proposal writing workshop for up to 1,000 early career engineering faculty to increase their capacity to formulate and submit competitive Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program proposals to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (ENG). This award seeks to broaden participation by increasing competitive proposals from investigators who are more diverse in terms of being from underrepresented groups in engineering and institution types, particularly institutions that may not have sufficient resources to support faculty in CAREER proposal development (e.g., institutions in EPSCoR states, non-R1 institutions, and Minority-Serving Institutions). Through an interactive three-day virtual workshop, this award will provide participants with (a) foundational knowledge on the key objectives and features of the CAREER Program; (b) an increased understanding of the proposal review and selection process; and (c) proposal writing strategies to enable them to formulate more competitive CAREER proposals for submission to the NSF Directorate for Engineering. The workshop will include a mock panel review session during which up to 300 participants will serve as reviewers on a mock panel and review a set of CAREER proposals. ASEE is strongly positioned to support and connect the early-career engineering faculty community to expand their participation in the NSF CAREER Program, leveraging its reach and influence to accelerate innovation, dissemination, and adoption of best practices in research, instruction, and diversity and inclusion. This award will encourage broader participation in NSF-sponsored research by helping junior faculty from underrepresented groups and under-participating institutions to compete more effectively for the NSF CAREER award, activating a larger portion of the nation’s science and engineering talent. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.