Broader Impacts

Lydia Baxter-Howard: So thank you for coming to the information session on Broader Impacts. May have a couple people trickle in. As we continue this session, this probably will be a little bit shorter than our normal sessions. I don’t think it’ll be a full hour or full 50 minutes. But, we will see if we have lots of questions at the end.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: If you do have questions, please hold them to the end or enter them in the chat. If you don’t want to forget them. My name is Lydia Baxter. Howard. I am a proposal development specialist within the Office of Research at WSU. And we’re gonna be talking about Broader Impacts.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: So the concept of Broader Impacts is widely known through its connection with NSF’s Merit Review requirement that all projects include potential include potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific desired societal outcomes. Because federal agencies are funded by taxpayer dollars, many use Broader Impacts or something similar to assess proposals for their public relevance. Some examples of Broader Impacts include improving education and educator development at any level in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Increasing public scientific literacy and public engagement with STEM, improving the well-being of individuals in society, developing a more diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce, building partnerships between industry, academia and other partners, improving national security, increasing economic competitiveness of the US, and finally enhancing our research infrastructure research and education infrastructure in the US.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: So as you begin to build your research program and craft proposals to fund it, consider what impact the knowledge you gain will have beyond your lab. Considering what impact to the knowledge you gain beyond your lab, is essential. And I would say it’s even more so now that research is under such intense federal and public scrutiny.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Scrutiny. A broader impact statement should aspire to the same level of uniqueness that your research does. Consider what your niche is. Will your work contribute to educating the public or influencing policy makers? Why is it important for others to understand your work? Broader Impacts or BI as I will alternately say throughout this presentation show that you are thinking about and have a plan for communicating your work to an audience outside your scientific community or discipline.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Often, researchers can’t effectively make Broader Impacts alone. So partnerships are essential. This might be a partnership, for curriculum development, video production, or web design, etc.. Working with local communities is a great way to spread your research to a larger audience and finding community partners or faculty that have worked with community partners before is a great place to start there.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: WSU has great resource sources for this, especially through extension and levering, leveraging these and using established Broader Impacts approaches in a novel way makes the process a little bit easier. Just like the research part of your project, Broader Impacts activities should have a just defensible budget year BI program is an integral part of your research project and should be budgeted for accordingly.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Reviewers will and reviewers will be looking at this. Lastly, how will you evaluate whether your work resonates with your intended audience, but resources will you use to ensure this? And, and highlight how the evaluation you do is important? Sponsors will want to know this. As you begin designing your

Stephen Henderson: Excuse me Lydia.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Broader Impacts portfolio,

Lydia Baxter-Howard: the following questions are a useful guide.

Stephen Henderson: Excuse me.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Stephen, I see your hand raised. If you could hold your question until the end or type it in the chat. I would greatly appreciate that.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: So as you design your Broader Impacts plan, there’s a series of questions that you can ask, to kind of guide this, this thought process. So first you want to ask what is the potential for the proposed activity to benefit society or advance desired societal outcomes, (the Broader Impacts). As you’re answering that question, consider that it is important to build a long term program of impact as part of your research portfolio.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: The size of the target audience should be taken into consideration for many of BI activities that involve education, outreach, or public engagement. The size of the audience reach and the depth and intensity and or intensity of their engagement are important considerations and represent a design as well as an outcome trade off. A large number of individuals can be reached over a short period of time to introduce, to introduce the audience to a research comp concept, or raise awareness. A smaller number of individuals may be engaged for deeper experience.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: It’s important that the proposal be thoughtful about this trade off. Make sure it’s appropriate to the intended outcomes of the BI activity, and that the intended societal benefits are articulated. Other considerations in this question can be the potential for scalability of activities, either during the funding period or beyond, and sustainability of the activities beyond the grant. The second, to what extent do the proposed activities explore creative, original, or potentially transformative concepts?

Lydia Baxter-Howard: As you’re answering this question, you want to think about, how could the BI activities may be based on previously established and or innovative methods and approaches. But either case, they must be well justified. BI activities, should you utilize evidence based principles, practices and methods. So again, those already established methods, are important. You don’t want to be reinventing the wheel here.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Third is the plan for carrying out the proposed activities well-reasoned, well organized, and based on a sound rationale. Does the plan incorporate a mechanism to assess success? As you’re answering these questions, you want to consider whether you should state the need and or how you should state the need, and what would be contributed to the field by the proposed Broader Impacts activity.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Consider Broader Impacts, goals and objectives and how they’re aligned with measurable outcomes. Consider methods for measuring and measuring attainment of the specific goals and outcomes, and those should be explicitly stated. Then finally, activities should be grounded in existing relevant literature.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Fourth, how well qualified is the individual, team or organization to conduct the proposed activities? As you’re answering this question, you’ll want to consider including a relevant information on the results of prior support for previously funded projects. In the case of NSF, this is in accordance with PAPPG for preparing the proposal package. If no prior support has been received, include evidence that the proposed PI and project team has the experience to successfully execute BI activities to achieve the stated outcomes, and to to achieve the stated outcomes.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: And this can be listed in a Synergistic Activities document. If the PI has no prior BI experience, he or she should include a partner or team member with BI experience, either from within his or her own institution or from another institution. Institutions necessary don’t necessarily have to be academic. They may include informal education organizations, museums, science centers, public departments, or other community partners.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: The proposal should include a biosketch or letter of collaboration for the BI activity partner or partners, as allowed by the NSF PAPPG guidelines. And then fifth and finally, are there adequate resources available to the PI either at the home organization or through collaborations to carry out the proposed activities? Is the budget allocated for Broader Impacts activities sufficient to successfully implement them?

Lydia Baxter-Howard: As you’re answering these questions, you want to consider describing the resources provided by the PI’s institution and partnering institution or organizations. Any substantial collaboration with individual partners not included in the budget should be described in the facilities, equipment and other research resources section of the proposal and documented in a letter of collaboration from each collaborator. The budget justification should provide enough information for reviewers to evaluate the appropriateness of the necessary resources, the resources necessary to conduct proposed BI activity or activities, and to reach the desired outcomes.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Keep in mind that, at least for NSF, these five criteria are what will be used by reviewers who are assessing your proposal. Other federal agencies have kind of similar requirements. But NSF kind of has the most structured Broader Impacts, requirements and assessment of those requirements. Next, we’ll go into a few examples of the Broader Impacts from recent research out of several federal sponsors.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: As STEM fields rapidly advance, economic growth follows. The US needs a robust workforce that leverages the untapped talent in the country. So these are some examples of three, NSF funded STEM education programs, which aim to build a pathway for citizens in rural and overlooked communities in the US. And then there are a couple extra projects, included here as well.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: The First2 Network is a collaborative alliance focused on improving STEM access for rural, first generation and low income college students and they’re based in West Virginia. They’re funded by the NSF INCLUDES initiative, and its purpose is to transform higher education systems by engaging students as co-creators of solutions, using improvement science to test and scale high impact practices.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Since its launch in 2016, the network has grown to include over 30 organizations and 1200 members and has achieved outcomes such as increased retention through early research experiences, enhanced student belonging, and stronger connections to STEM careers and leadership opportunities. Next, the STEM Core Project is a community college based educational model designed to accelerate underrepresented and underprepared students into STEM careers by providing a structured, cohort based pathway from intermediate algebra to calculus readiness in just two semesters.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: It integrates contextualized math instruction and computer science and or engineering with hands on technical training, wraparound academic and social support, and paid industry internships. So they partner with institutions like NASA and the National labs to build a diverse, skilled STEM workforce. The HBCU Chips network is a national initiative designed to engage Historically Black Colleges and Universities in advancing the U.S. semiconductor industry.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Its purpose is to build a diverse, skilled workforce by leveraging Historically Black Colleges and Universities’ research capabilities, developing specialized semiconductor create curricula, and expanding access to internships, scholarships, and mentorship. The project fosters innovation, supports underserved communities, and aligns with the goals of the Chips and Science Act.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: By addressing the missing millions quote in STEM fields through inclusive education, research and economic development strategies. Engineering for US All is a national initiative supported by NSF that aims to democratize access to the engineering to engineering education by offering high quality, design based curriculum for high school students, regardless of their prior technical background. This was launched in 2019, and the program has reached over 10,000 students across 100 plus high schools and is supported by 39 university partners.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: E4 USA emphasizes empowerment, engagement and real world problem solving through hands on design challenges, interdisciplinary team teamwork, and the development of digital design portfolios. Students can also earn college credit, helping to build a more diverse and prepared future engineering workforce. And then finally, SciStarter is a global platform that connects people of all ages and backgrounds to over 1000 citizen science projects, enabling them to contribute to scientific research from anywhere.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Its flagship initiative, Citizen Science Month, held every April, mobilizes individuals, libraries, schools, and organizations to participate on in scientific discovery through activities like data collection, image analysis, and environmental monitoring. In April 2025 alone, over 3 million acts of science were logged by half a million volunteers across 100 over 100 countries, far surpassing the original goal of 1 million acts.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: These acts, ranging from tracking biodiversity to aiding Alzheimer’s research, demonstrate the power of public participation in accelerating science and shaping a more informed and engaged society. The Broader Impacts of medical research are usually easier to see whether they assist in prevention, diagnosis or treatment, and the condition, there’s typically a clear link between data collected during a project and at least a potential patient outcome, if not a direct link from research to patient care.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Biomedical molecular sensors are rapidly gaining traction in the research community. NSF funded researchers are developing cutting edge biomedical sensors and devices that could transform how diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart conditions are diagnosed and treated. Innovations include light based detection of disease markers, dissolvable heart monitors, real-time immune response sensors, and ingestible devices for gut health. These technologies aim to improve early diagnosis, personalized personalized treatment, and reduce invasive procedures.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Looking ahead, quantum sensing is expected to further expand the possibilities for medical diagnosis and care. Excuse me. In a recent advance in protein preservation, researchers have developed a new type of material made from short chains of amino acids, or tri peptides, that can form stable, water friendly, friendly particles capable of storing and protecting sensitive biological molecules, including proteins and drugs.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: These particles are created through a drying process that actually mimics how some organisms survive extreme dehydration. Once dried, the particles can be easily rehydrated without losing their function, making them ideal for applications like drug delivery, vaccine storage, and biotechnology, especially environments in environments where refrigeration is limited. Though DoD research is conducted through the lens of national defense projects funded through many of their programs, such as the Congressionally Mandated Research Programs, play a vital role in advancing health care and disease prevention and management.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: These advances include areas such as ALS, breast cancer, chronic pain management, and multiple sclerosis. A research team funded by NIH has developed a promising new drug, VIP36, that targets one of the cannabinoid receptors to treat acute and chronic pain without the harmful side effects typically associated with CB1 target targeting drugs or other pain management drugs, such as opioids.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Using advanced computer modeling, this team engineered the molecule the drug to be peripherally restricted and minimizing its impact on the brain and reducing the risk tolerance and mood related side effects. So basically, this drug, instead of crossing the blood brain barrier and affecting the brain, it actually works, directly on the pain targets in the body. This breakthrough, which is supported by the NIH Heal initiative, represents a significant step toward non-addictive, safer pain treatments and may also inform the development of drugs for other conditions involving G-protein coupled receptors.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Broader Impacts also stem from agricultural studies like those funded by the USDA. This type of research does the heavy lifting to determine best practices for agriculture, food security, and pest management that can map onto farmers practices at scale, thereby directly impacting consumers via costs at the grocery store. Essentially, we’re doing the experiments so that farmers don’t have to.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: For example, Rutgers scientists supported by USDA NIFA have developed a new bed bug spray that overcomes the insects growing resistance to existing treatments. The breakthrough formula uses a combination of essential oils and detergents to effectively kill bedbugs, offering a safer and more sustainable alternative to traditional chemical pesticides. And this can be expanded potentially to, crop pests as well.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Research investigating silvopasture methodologies can inform farmers to a new farming strategy that may be a great way to boost farm productivity, reducing the risk required by farmers to transform their practices in a data driven manner. This sustainable farming method integrates trees, forage and livestock and serves as a way to boost food production, improve forest health, and strengthen farm resilience all at once.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: By combining these elements, farmers can diversify income, enhance soil and water quality, and create more climate resilient agricultural systems. The approach also supports biodiversity and long term land stewardship, offering a win win for both agriculture and the environment.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: USDA NIFA is also supporting researchers who are developing advanced protective clothing for wildland firefighters that offers better heat resistance, breathability and comfort. By using innovative materials and design, this project aims to reduce the risk of heat, stress and excuse me and injuries, helping firefighters stay safer and more effective during intense wildfire conditions.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: And then finally, understanding the minutia of how our world works often leads to leaps in development for technologies people use every day. Some of NSF’s early investments in quantum research helped lay the groundwork for a breakthrough experimental quantum chip, developed by researchers at Harvard and MIT. This chip uses neutral atoms in a laser based control and laser based control to perform quantum operations with high precision, potentially advancing quantum computing capabilities.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: It has the potential to revolutionize areas like cybersecurity, material science, and drug discovery. The work reflects the long term impact of NSF support in building foundational technologies that drive innovation in emerging fields like quantum information science. And perhaps, perhaps the most popular phrase in research at the moment is artificial intelligence. I’m sure you’ve all heard it many times in the last year.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Researchers everywhere are grappling with the best, with developing best practices for using this powerful tool in their work and society at large. The NSF funded M3X project is developing a new approach to health care that combines human expertise with artificial intelligence to improve decision making and patient outcomes. Instead of replacing doctors, the system actually enhances their capabilities by integrating AI tools into clinical workflows, helping to find patterns, predict outcomes, and personalize treatments.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: The goal is to create a more collaborative, adaptive, and efficient health care system that benefits both providers and patients. We owe one of the greatest advances in technology to academic research, contributions. Much of the technology integrated into cell phones, cellular networks, and the required associated security measures is based in research in the physical sciences. Then finally, project supported by the US Department of Energy, are advancing electric grid resilience by developing a new type of universal universal flexible power transformer that can be quickly deployed during emergencies.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: This innovative transformer is designed to adapt to different voltage levels, configurations and voltage levels and configurations, making it easier to replace damaged units and restore pasture […] restore power faster after natural disasters and cyber or cyber attacks. This research contributes to national security by strengthening the grid’s ability to withstand and recover from disruptions. Now we’ll dive into some examples of Broader Impacts at WSU.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Broader Impacts at our university are rooted in WSU’s land grant mission which keeps us committed to the principles of practical education for all, scholarly inquiry that benefits society and the sharing of expertise to positively impact the state and its communities. The research conducted at WSU is deeply entrenched in Broader Impacts to communities within the state and includes tackling real world problems, including using AI to address agricultural challenges at the AgAID Institute.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Fighting food insecurity through supporting farmers in their fight to combat plant diseases that affect crop yields; working with and empowering local Washington communities to incorporate research backed treatment approaches to the addiction crisis; bringing AI tools to respond to America’s electrical grid challenges; conducting groundbreaking work in fatigue management and enhance law enforcement, mental health, and job performance: protecting the agricultural industry from threats to honeybee colonies: and helping schools across the state identify root causes about chronic absenteeism to keep K-12 students engaged in the classroom.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Pursuing knowledge and new discoveries will always be part of the research process, but like any business transaction, sponsors will want an idea of what their return on investment will be.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: WSU extension is a classic example of Broader Impacts work at the university. The program has six primary topic areas shown here, and has physical locations in every county in the state. It is an essential conduit between the WSU research community and Washingtonians statewide. Through extension Washingtonians can search for subject matter experts in these six topic areas and more than 30 subtopics to gain knowledge and understanding around a myriad of challenges they may face.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: For centers within the WSU Extension program are deeply entwined with the agricultural community throughout the state, and they focus on best practices, environmental education, and agricultural productivity. Partnering with WSU Extension is a great way to take advantage of a resource that is readily available, well established, and would help fulfill the mission of a Broader Impacts plan.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Now we’re going to kind of go into, the Broader Impacts toolkit and how you can use it to develop your BI plan through sponsorship sponsorship from NSF, Rutgers University developed the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society, or ARIS. They’re committed to educating and increasing understanding of what it means to develop and incorporate an NSF compliant, Broader Impacts plan with any research.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: Keep in mind that although this toolkit was designed with NSF proposals in mind, it can still be a valuable resource as you develop your research program. The toolkit, formerly only included the Broader Impacts Wizard, now includes a checklist, summary of the guiding principles for effective BI statements, and a rubric for you to assess your Broader Impacts plan.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: ARIS also runs the program to Enhance Organizational Research Impact Capacity, ORIC, which helps organizations such as universities to assess, communicate, and expand the impact of their research. We’re going to focus on the BI Wizard next. So the BI wizard consists of two sections: the Planning Guide and the Project Planning Tool.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: The guide will walk you through questions you should be asking as you design your BI plan and the planning tool breaks down the required elements of the required elements of the BI plan into digestible questions, ending in a summary report which you can then assess for broader impact strength using the broader Impact Impacts Plan checklist, also included in the toolkit.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: The Broader Impacts Wizard is designed to be used iteratively iteratively. So as you design your plan, you want to continuously update, your inputs into the wizard. As you work through the prompts and checklist, you will identify areas where your proposal could be strengthened. After producing the best Broader Impacts plan possible, you can then assess it using the planning rubric.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: This rubric uses five critical elements of a broader impact plan. One is shown here, which we discussed earlier in the presentation to determine how well your plan fulfills NSF’s requirements, requesting your plan, how, requesting how your plan rates against these criteria: excellent, very good, fair, or poor. If you have a colleague editing your proposal, this is a great tool for them to use as well.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: So, that is the end of our presentation. I’m going to wrap up in summary, Broader Impacts gives context to your research beyond the pursuit of knowledge in your field. Incorporating Broader Impacts into your work makes it more meaningful for a larger audience, something that is evermore important in our society. Sharing research outcomes with broader audiences through education, outreach, or public engagement helps build public trust in science and fosters a more informed and scientifically literate society.

Lydia Baxter-Howard: It can lead to cross-sector collaborations and is essential for opening new funding sources and can inspire the next generation of scientists.