Sec. 5. Strengthening the national science foundation advance program
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The Director shall strengthen the goals and activities of the ADVANCE program as in effect on the date of enactment of this Act to focus on increasing the recruitment, retention, and success of all women in STEM, including minorities and persons with disabilities. The Director shall support the exploration, development, evaluation, and implementation of a system to recognize institutions of higher education that have demonstrated success in promoting inclusion for underrepresented groups in STEM.
The Director shall build on the success of the ADVANCE program by awarding a grant for the establishment of at least one Center of Excellence for Inclusion in STEM (referred to in this section as a Center )— to collect, maintain, and disseminate information on increasing the inclusion of all underrepresented groups in STEM, including women, minorities, and persons with disabilities; and to scale-up the success of ADVANCE funded initiatives and other federally funded initiatives to support women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in STEM careers by providing technical assistance, collecting, maintaining, and disseminating best practices, and providing related training at federally funded institutions of higher education.
The Director shall establish a Center through a competitive grant award consistent with standard National Science Foundation practice. Grants and subgrants awarded under this subsection shall be awarded on a merit-reviewed, competitive basis. The Director shall establish criteria for the award of a grant or subgrant under this subsection that includes requiring a grant or subgrant recipient to transfer all Center program information to any awardee that receives a subsequent grant or subgrant under this subsection.
All program information developed, collected, or maintained by a Center, with the exception of personally identifiable information, is and shall remain part of the public domain. At least one Center established under this subsection shall be operational at all times during the 15 years following the initial Center program award. A Center established under this subsection shall carry out the following activities: Collect, maintain, and broadly disseminate information from ADVANCE funded initiatives and from broader STEM communities on systemic factors affecting the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM, and best practices for addressing those factors.
Collaborate with Federal science agencies and professional associations to share best practices on work-life accommodation policies and practices. Collaborate with institutions of higher education in order to clarify and catalyze the adoption of a coherent and consistent set of work-life accommodation policies and practices that support the needs of faculty, students, post-doctoral fellows, staff, and trainees. Provide educational opportunities, including workshops and trainings for STEM faculty to improve their mentoring, instructing, and advising of students from underrepresented groups.
Provide training at least biannually on the impact of implicit bias on hiring, promotion, evaluation, grant review processes, and the workplace in general. Develop evidence-based workshops and training on improving inclusion of underrepresented groups in STEM. Such workshops and training may be carried out by awarding subgrants to institutions of higher education (or consortia of such institutions), nonprofit organizations, professional societies, or other entities that the Center determines eligible for participation.
An eligible entity that carries out a workshop under this subparagraph shall collect data on the rates of attendance by invitees in workshops, including information on the home institution, rank, and department of attendees, conduct attitudinal surveys on workshop attendees before and after the workshops, and collect follow-up data on any relevant institutional policy or practice changes reported by attendees not later than 1 year after attendance in such a workshop. Other efforts that the Center determines are necessary to further the inclusion of underrepresented groups in STEM.
Not later than 4 years after the date of enactment of this Act, a Center shall hold a national conference on the effectiveness of the activities supported under this section. Conference invitees shall include community colleges, business and industry, secondary school systems, 4-year institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, Federal science agencies and education agencies, Federal laboratories, and Congress. The conference shall focus on advancing collaborative capacity within, across, and beyond ADVANCE awardees.
Conference participants shall share recent research and program progress, evaluate opportunities for inter-project collaboration, exchange and disseminate ideas within the community, and provide program management the opportunity to assess the overall balance of the portfolio and evaluate future research and program priorities. A conference report, including program progress, shall be available to the public and provided to Congress not later than 6 months after the end of the conference.
There are authorized to be appropriated— $20,000,000 in each of fiscal years 2017 through 2021 for the ADVANCE program at the National Science Foundation, including activities described in subsection (a); and $6,000,000 in each of fiscal years 2017 through 2021 to carry out subsections
(b)and (c).