ASTC emphasized the importance of public engagement with science in comments to the National Science Foundation (NSF) as it develops a roadmap for its new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate. The comments were submitted in response to a Request for Information issued by the agency.
ASTC encouraged NSF to focus on technology areas that not only show promise for use-inspired and translational research, but also those that arouse public interest or address public concerns. We urged NSF to explicitly call out a commitment to public engagement as part of the TIP roadmap and to make public engagement an expected element of all TIP funding programs and announcements.
Because of NSF’s mandate to promote both research and education, TIP has a unique opportunity to provide leadership in public engagement across the federal government. Indeed, ASTC called on TIP to incorporate and support public engagement activities, including in areas that extend beyond the scope of TIP and NSF.
ASTC flagged a special need to focus on public engagement as part of considering NSF’s Broader Impacts criterion, which is especially relevant for the type of use-inspired research projects that TIP is likely to support. In addition to funding direct public engagement activities, we encouraged NSF to also support efforts to add to the knowledge base on how these efforts can be most successful—and to facilitate broad dissemination of this research.
Recognizing that there are many organizations that have a track record of advancing public engagement with the sciences—including many ASTC members—we urged NSF to work with those who have led models elsewhere in the federal government and beyond. And we encouraged TIP to support the development and implementation of training programs for both science engagement professionals and researchers in science and technology.
The TIP Directorate is NSF’s first new directorate in more than 30 years. It was created by NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in 2022 and authorized in the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. TIP was established to advance use-inspired and translational research in all fields of science and engineering, helping to address pressing societal and economic challenges, accelerate the translation of research from lab to market, and partner to engage the nation’s diverse talent.