HR: 1330h
AN: ED22D-1252 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: The ADVANCE Program: Targeting the Increase in the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers
AU: * Esperanca, S
EM: sesperan@nsf.gov
AF: NSF, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22230 United States
AB: The goal of NSF's ADVANCE Program is to help increase the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce through the increased representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers. The Program tries to address this under representation by focusing on support for men and women with three approaches: institutional (Institutional Transformation), grass-root (Leadership), and individual (Fellows) support. The ADVANCE Program alternates with a round of Institutional and Leadership awards in one year and a Fellows competition the next. Since its inception in 2001, NSF has had two competitive rounds for each of the three award types and will have spent approximately 75 M\$ by the end of the next fiscal year (2004). The first and second ADVANCE Institutional Transformation competitions (FY 2001 and 2003) received over 70 proposals each. These awards are for multi-year support in the amount of 3-4M\$ each. Details and access to the websites for the ADVANCE programs of each institution can be found in NSF's ADVANCE webpage at http://nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/advance/itwebsites.htm. The number of proposals submitted for the Leadership awards competition dropped from 35 in 2001 to 26 in 2003, despite an increase in the allowed award size for the second round. In terms of projected goals, this part of ADVANCE is perhaps the most eclectic. Some Leadership awards were made to professional societies to work specifically with their respective scientific communities in identifying needs that might be peculiar to a field of science. In the first round of the Leadership awards, PI Mary-Anne Holmes of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and collaborators received a grant to work with the Association of Women Geoscientists to determine the current status of women geoscientists in the US. These grantees hope to disseminate the information gathered under this award broadly in order to educate women students and faculty on strategies to overcome barriers, and to encourage women to pursue academic geoscience careers as well as teach administrators how to recruit and retain qualified women in geoscience. The ADVANCE Fellows competition includes eligibility for women in three broad categories: early-career; career interruption; and trailing spouse. The first Fellows competition took place in 2002 and received over 150 applications throughout the Foundation. The Directorate of Geosciences (GEO) received 26 proposals, approximately 18% of the total number, and second only to the Directorate of Biological Sciences (BIO). Of the 26 proposals, 5 were in Atmospheric Sciences (ATM), 9 in Earth Sciences (EAR), and 12 in Ocean Sciences (OCE). Proposal pressure in the Fellows competition was roughly correlated with the number of women in the respective fields. In GEO, the number of proposals reflected broadly the representation of women as PIs in the various Divisions, where OCE has the largest number of female PIs, followed by EAR and ATM, respectively. Of the pool of applicants in 2002 and 2004, approximately 50% were PIs that applied in the early-career (post-doctoral) category, with the other 50% composed of about half for each of the two other categories (spouse relocation and career interruption). Over the next two years, NSF hopes to have a significant portfolio of awards to start deriving some information on successful models for promoting the increase in the representation of women at higher levels of the academic career. Feedback to the members of the ADVANCE Implementation Committee is strongly encouraged as we continue to try to improve this program to better answer the needs of women in academia.
DE: 6605 Education
DE: 6630 Workforce
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting