The U.S. National Science Foundation Research Traineeship celebrates 10 years of impact
NSF Innovations in Graduate Education: A powerful initiative with roots in the NRT program
The U.S. National Science Foundation Research Traineeship program (NSF NRT) is celebrating 10 years of supporting graduate STEM education. Since 2014, it has worked to ensure that the next generation of STEM leaders are prepared to drive the discoveries of tomorrow. When the NSF NRT program was launched, it had two tracks: one for projects dedicated to education of STEM graduate students through an innovative, evidence-based traineeship approach, and another dedicated solely to piloting, evaluating and scaling bold new graduate education approaches. This Innovations in Graduate Education (NSF IGE) Track specifically provided institutions of higher education with opportunities to explore potentially groundbreaking STEM research and education models. These opportunities proved powerful enough for NSF to launch the NSF IGE initiative in 2017, which has now invested over $40 million in over 80 projects in 35 states and the District of Columbia.