CGS Announces New Project to Better Understand and Support Inclusive Research Environments

CGS is pleased to announce a new project, Scaling a Systems Approach to Inclusive Graduate Research Environments, supported by the National Science Foundation’s Innovation in Graduate Education (IGE) program under grant #2429880. The project will test strategies for helping all students, and in particular, students underrepresented in graduate education, to succeed in doctoral programs.

Previous IGE research at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown a strong correlation between student success and program environments where expectations and rules are clear and consistently applied. Working with a network of 10 universities and 60 doctoral programs, CGS will collect the data needed to examine whether this finding holds across a broader range of institutions and program types. The research and interventions tested in this project have the potential to improve the educational and career outcomes for all graduate students by creating greater transparency about the steps needed to successfully complete the PhD and transition to a STEM career.

The project will support subawards to CGS member institutions to participate in the data collection activities. A call-for-proposals will be sent to eligible CGS member institutions in April 2025. The eligibility requirements (which will require institutions submitting proposals to have specific STEM doctoral programs of sufficient size) will be explained in the RFP.

We thank the following advisory committee members for the role they will play in guiding the project:

• Sarah Ades, Dean of the Graduate School and Senior Vice Provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Texas at Austin

• Joshua Barker, Dean, School of Graduate Studies and Vice Provost, Graduate Research and Education, University of Toronto

• Igor Chirikov, Senior Researcher and Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California at Berkeley

• Andrew Eppig, Director of Data Equity, University of California Berkeley

• Jeni Hart, Dean of Graduate School and Vice Provost of Graduate Education, University of Missouri

• Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux, Assistant Vice President, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Assessment, Chief Diversity Officer, Chief Institutional Research Officer, Cal Tech

• Maresi Nerad, Emeritus Professor and Founding Director, Center for Research on Innovation in Graduate Education, University of Washington

• Trinetia Respress, Dean, School of Graduate and Professional Studies, Tennessee State University,

• Michael Solomon, Dean and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Graduate Studies, University of Michigan