Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education Organizational Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (STEM Ed OPRF)

Overview

The STEM Ed OPRF Program supports professional development activities of a cohort of postdoctoral fellows in settings that will position them for careers as STEM education research scholars. The STEM Ed PRF Program encourages proposals that support postdoctoral experiences for those holding doctorates in STEM, STEM Education, Education, and related disciplines who have career interests in STEM education research.

Examples of Professional Development Activities
To successfully conceptualize, design, and execute studies capable of making contributions to knowledge in STEM teaching and learning, broadening participation, and workforce development, investigators and their teams typically require a wide range of knowledge, skills, expertise, and experiences. Examples of relevant professional development activities include but are not limited to:

• Connecting with new or broadening existing professional networks
• Gaining teaching experience or experience with grant writing
• Deepening knowledge of subject-matter literature
• Examining interdisciplinary perspectives
• Operationalizing new research questions and articulating relevant theories of change
• Developing additional expertise in study design, research methods, and data analysis techniques
• Augmenting expertise aligned with changing educational practices
• Synthesizing existing research findings
• Collecting, managing, documenting, and archiving data to facilitate replication and reproducibility studies and secondary analyses

Examples of Research Topics
The STEM Ed PRF Program invites proposals with a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and welcomes fundamental research proposals across the three research areas: STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.

The following list of research topic clusters is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive, and the program is open to other topic clusters that advance fundamental knowledge across the three research areas.

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM
• Factors at the neural, cognitive, institutional, structural, organizational, societal, and systemic levels that affect STEM education and/or the STEM workforce
• STEM teaching and learning in preK-12, undergraduate, graduate, workplace, and/or informal contexts
• Research on technology-enabled learning
• STEM education policy research and
• Research that builds on and expands the foundations for evaluating STEM education and/or STEM workforce development initiatives

Organizational Postdoctoral Fellowship Proposals
This solicitation supports organizational postdoctoral fellowship projects; a companion solicitation (STEM Ed IPRF) supports individual postdoctoral fellowship awards. The Organizational Postdoctoral Fellowship projects provide an opportunity for organizations to design a postdoctoral fellowship program that 1) facilitates the acquisition of STEM education research expertise, skills, and competencies to engage in fundamental STEM education research and 2) provides professional development professional development opportunities that will enable fellows to become independent STEM education research scholars. The STEM Ed PRF Program encourages proposals from minority-serving institutions and the inclusion of women, persons with disabilities, and members of groups underrepresented in the STEM workforce as fellows. Fellows must meet the eligibility requirements in Section IV. Eligibility Information.

PIs and co-PIs must hold full-time positions at the proposing organization in STEM, STEM education, Education, or a related discipline with a research emphasis in STEM education. This may include but is not limited to individuals with full-time academic or research appointments, those who hold positions at non-profit, non-academic organizations, such as museums, observatories, research laboratories, professional societies and similar organizations located in the United States.

Fellows supported through organizational awards must meet the following eligibility requirements:

• Be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident;
• Have earned the doctoral degree, or expect to have earned the doctoral degree in a field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM), STEM Education, Education, or a related discipline prior to the earned no more than 24 months;
• Must not hold a tenure-track position

Award Information: Organizational fellowships will be awarded up to $1,250,000 for a duration of up to three years. 

Estimated Number of Awards: 2 to 4

Duration: Up to 36 months of support may be requested.

Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited.