NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) held a virtual office hour on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, on broader impacts. BIO Program Directors and staff were joined by special guest Susan Renoe, PhD, Associate Vice Chancellor at the University of Missouri and Executive Director of the NSF-funded Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) (OIA-1810732).

Dr. Renoe discussed how to make your Broader Impacts plans have impact and provide helpful resources to use when thinking about the broader impacts of your research.

If you were unable to attend, you can find the slides HERE. Additional resources can be found on the ARIS website and in ARIS Broader Impacts Toolkit.

Previous blog posts on Broader Impacts can be found HERE and HERE.

About ARIS

The Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society seeks to amplify the impacts of research by supporting investigators from diverse fields and partnering with NSF and other organizations aligned with ARIS’s vision to prioritize research impacts for the benefit of society.

To accomplish its mission, ARIS has several major strategic initiatives in progress, including the Program to Enhance Organizational Research Impact Capacity (ORIC). ORIC brings together cohorts of institutions and organizations chosen through a competitive application process to receive training, resources and mentorship that will allow them to substantially enhance their internal capacity to support research impact.

ARIS has developed a suite of helpful and frequently used planning tools, called the BI Toolkit. The toolkit now includes the BI Guiding Principles document, BI Planning checklist, the BI Wizard, and the BI Evaluation Rubric.

ARIS is also creating a Broader Impacts Certification & MicroCredential program. When complete, the program will include six modules: BI Foundations, writing an Effective BI Plan, Faculty Development in BI, Building Strong Partnerships, Broadening Participation through BI and Evaluating BI.

ARIS also offers custom training for institutions in addition to trainings that are open to all. ARIS shares resources and news with the more than 1,500 community members who subscribe to the ARIS newsletter.