7

Recommending and Prioritizing Promising Practices

There are actions that NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) can undertake that can potentially improve the health and vitality of its research communities. The committee has identified practices and anecdotal recommendations, but feels they should be categorized as “promising,” rather than “best” practices. The differentiation between the categories is based on an evidence-based hierarchy that focuses on data to demonstrate effectiveness and value.

• A best practice is an effort that has consistently proven effective through the most rigorous scientific research (especially conducted by independent researchers), and which has been replicated across several cases or domains. Although expended effort in attempting to achieve healthy communities has been significant, every discipline area continues to struggle. With limited evidence of success, the moniker of “best practice” is limited and new, substantive, sustainable, and sustained efforts are required.
• A promising practice is one that has been proven effective at achieving a specific aim or outcome and may be applicable to meet SMD’s objectives. For example, NASA’s dual anonymous peer review (DAPR) process, effective on Hubble (Strolger and Natarajan 2019), is based on demonstrated results of double-blind studies. The dual blind anonymous process for selection has been used across multiple domains and is developing a basis to characterize its success (Goldin and Rouse 2000).¹ With this data basis, it may be characterized as a “promising practice.”
• An emerging practice is new or innovative and holds promise based on some level of evidence of effectiveness that is not research-based.

Using expert opinion, published thought leadership, and decadal survey analyses, the team reviewed promising practices in place at other institutions and NASA.

Although SMD is somewhat unique in its challenges of balancing science and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), there are multiple examples of organizations working to identify promising practices for DEIA. Key practices of the federal agencies that receive 98 percent of the federal research and development (R&D) funding were reviewed to determine possible practices for review (8 agencies): Department of Defense (DoD; 42 percent), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS; primarily the National Institutes of Health

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¹NASA, 2022, “Dual Anonymous Peer Review (DAPR),” NASA Science Mission Directorate, https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/dual-anonymous-peer-review.

[NIH]; 27 percent), Department of Energy (DOE; 11 percent), NASA (10 percent), National Science Foundation (NSF; 5 percent), Department of Agriculture (USDA; 2 percent), Department of Commerce (1 percent), and Department of Veterans Affairs (1 percent). Efforts by space, Earth, biological and physical sciences professional societies, representing a large portion of the space science research community, have started efforts to address their constituencies. Many promising practices, in use by these societies and other government agencies are often captured in decadal reports from the last decade and white papers submitted by members of their science communities. Each practice was weighed against potential impact. It should be noted that some of the practices were used to illustrate conclusions in prior chapters but may be captured here for quick reference.

SMD is making significant progress in collecting data and supporting its research communities; however, opportunities exist. Discussion of practices will proceed by tenet and Table 7-1 captures a summary of these opportunities by topic, summarizing existing initiatives and promising practices that may serve as tutorial methods, guidance, or anecdotal evidence.

PROMISING PRACTICES: CLARITY OF SCIENCE FOR EFFICIENT RESEARCH AND PUBLIC SUPPORT

Key attributes and indicators include (1) Clear scientific questions in each science domain to focus priorities, support strategic goals and feed technology development; (2) Metrics on grant participation (center, type of institution); (3) Review of research idea novelty; (4) Review of types and effectiveness of the peer-review process integrated across the directorate; (5) Metrics on foundational funding; and (6) Science and other parameters tracked using multi-objective visualization. Of these, SMD’s practices on developing scientific questions are best in class, reviews of research idea novelty and effectiveness of the peer-review process are opportunities. If these seem of benefit to SMD, multiple methods are available and are often in practice by SMD, where the goal is a review of science and not a review of process.

SMD’s effective use of decadal surveys has enabled decades of world-class research in space, Earth, biological and physical sciences through community engagement and peer review of science priorities and recommended missions and is a demonstrated best practice. A long view of the benefits of strategic planning for space research was captured in the National Research Council report Setting Priorities for Space Research: Opportunities and Imperatives (NRC 1992). Following NASA’s lead, NSF, and DOE have similar practices.

Metrics of participation in grants are used by NIH on its “By the Numbers” website and NSF in its charter-mandated reporting of Minority Serving Institution (MSI) awards. These practices are captured below under “Promising Practices: Representative Workforce.”

NIH implements specific criteria in their grant instructions and evaluation criteria. As stated in their criteria, reviewers provide an overall impact/priority score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood for the project to make an important scientific contribution to the research field(s) involved or whether the project will provide needed research opportunities to students.²

Reviews of idea novelty and peer review effectiveness are considered opportunities. Metrics of novelty or ideation metrics have been discussed for decades, but there are no specific, clear quantitative methods (Shah and Vargas-Hernandez 2002); therefore, qualitative review of ideas and merit performed by peer committees and editorial boards are successful alternatives. This metric is a reminder to overtly discuss idea novelty as a regular criterion, regardless of institution or proposer heritage, as means to introduce diverse ideas into the proposal selection process.

Beyond the regular briefings SMD provides on progress to its key stakeholders, the committee has identified an opportunity to track the trajectory of science initiatives, particularly long cycle science across mission areas using high level visualization tools, including dashboards.³ There are multiple sources on data science analytics

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² National Institutes of Health (NIH), 2016, “Definitions of Criteria and Consideration for Research Project Grant (RPG/R01/R03/R15/R21/R34) Critiques,” https://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/critiques/rpg.htm; NIH, “Diversity Matters,” https://extramural-diversity.nih.gov/diversity-matters; NIH, “Building Participation,” https://extramural-diversity.nih.gov/building-participation.

³ General resources include methods to measure success (https://tnaconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/measuring-for-successbuilding-effective-dashboards.pdf) or tools to track community science goals (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1098301521015448).

and visualization to track and communicate complex interactions and trends, many in use by space science. In addition, with change on the horizon (the promotion of inclusivity within the many space science communities), tools that track both the intended change (i.e., community demographics), and key performance (science metrics) are useful. Used well, these tools monitor intended/unintended consequences.

PROMISING PRACTICES: REPRESENTATIVE WORKFORCE

Key attributes and indicators include (1) clear vision of expectations to communicate intent to the community, (2) metrics on demographics and attributes, (3) demographics dashboard to track progress and unintended consequences, and (4) social sciences engagement and qualitative metrics. Practices in each area, except dashboards, are discussed below.

As mentioned, both SMD and NASA have compelling visions on a representative workforce, as do most of the agencies. The White House Executive Order⁴ to address challenges of inequity and the NASA Headquarters (HQ) Mission Equity Request for Information⁵ are examples of specific strategic initiatives intended to drive change on this front.

NSF has studied best practices on how to incorporate DEIA into academic grant recipient processes, “Aligning Institutional Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility Priorities with Grantmaking Practices.”⁶ Some of the questions to address found in this report are dimensions for examination:

• Has the organization made an expressed commitment to DEIA?
• Has it authorized DEIA in organizational policy?
• Has it implemented DEIA practices in its operations?
• Has it implemented DEIA practices in grantmaking and other programmatic areas?
• Does it utilize accountability mechanisms to monitor DEIA?
• Are DEIA practices adequately resourced with staffing/funding?

NIH’s pre-award and award processes⁷ clearly established guidelines in the assessment of proposal review beyond the peer-review process. Lessons could be learned in reviewing these processes.

The difficulty of developing a plan to incentivize change in a community that is comprised of multiple, unique, smaller communities may be somewhat universal. Each individual community represents a separate culture with its own challenges. State governments have faced a similar challenge as they address diversity, equity, and inclusion across multiple, diverse, geographically dispersed communities, with the populations of these smaller communities in the midst of execution and at varied states of maturity. Successful implementations have been accomplished by a few states, for example, the Washington State Municipal Research and Service Center provide examples of how to support proposal and plan development specifically focused on DEIA.⁸

Promising practices on demographics and attributes are demonstrated by multiple agencies in the collection, transparency, monitoring, and actionable efforts associated with relevant population demographics. In addition, at the beginning of the Biden administration, the Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, was issued with the intent of setting an expectation “to cultivate a workforce that draws from the full diversity of the nation.” As the order notes, “a first step

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⁴ The White House, 2021, Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equityand-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government.

⁵NASA, 2021, “NASA Launches Mission Equity, Seeks Public Input to Broaden Access,” Release 21-080, https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-launches-mission-equity-seeks-public-input-to-broaden-access.

⁶ National Science Foundation, “Aligning Institutional Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility Priorities with Grantmaking Practices,” https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_193448.pdf.

⁷ NIH, 2020, “Pre-Award and Award Process,” https://grants.nih.gov/grants/pre-award-process.htm.

⁸ Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington, 2022, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Local Governments,” https://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Governance/Citizen-Participation-and-Engagement/DEI-Resources-for-Local-Government.aspx.

to promoting equity in government action is to gather the data necessary to inform that effort.” Detailed therein are multiple supportive and directive statements on data collection and usage as the basis for tracking progress. Promising practices of note are the efforts by NIH, the White House, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Geosciences Institute (AGI), NSF, and the American Institute of Physics (AIP):

• NIH has collected demographic information from researchers for decades using the Office of Extramural Research (OER). As an office within the NIH Office of the Director, data are collected, analyzed, and shared in the NIH Data Book, capturing grant awards, demographics by gender, race, career stage, education, ethnicity, disability, etc. (NIH 2021),⁹ allowing a comprehensive approach for collecting and assessing performance to established values.
• AGU through its Bridge program efforts and Ethics Center are collecting data on key diversity and professionalism metrics.
• AGI continuously monitors the Earth science research community demographics and activities and conducts ongoing surveys of new graduates at all levels for educational, professional, and interpersonal experiences in their science education, leading to insights on the emerging Earth science workforce.
• NSF produces ongoing analysis of science enterprise dynamics and workforce information. Its Survey of Earned Doctorates and for eligible social science researchers, access to its Restricted Data System, provides extensive insights into the state of the broader science community human dynamics.
• The Statistical Research Center (SRC) at the AIP has a wealth of data on initial career choices for astronomy and physics degree recipients. These data provide insight into entries for career paths. In addition, the SRC has data on people who are in minoritized groups in physics and astronomy. Through its Faculty Member Survey, SRC also has data on climate in physics and astronomy departments.
• The American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the Division for Planetary Sciences of AAS have sponsored several demographic surveys of its members to provide data for decadal surveys. AIP’s SRC has conducted these surveys.

Although NASA does not generally fund social science research, there may be an opportunity to assess benefits of soliciting community input. NIH has issued program announcement, “Social and Cultural Dimensions of Health,” to integrate knowledge from the biomedical and social sciences.

Formal surveys to assess the workplace culture are widely available. The goals of such surveys are to better understand the workplace environment and experience for an organization’s staff, to get recommendations from expert consultants in ways to create a more inclusive and welcoming culture throughout the organization, and to establish a baseline for measuring the effectiveness of the actions put in place in response to those recommendations. As such, these surveys are designed to measure workplace culture such as inclusion and belonging among an organization’s staff. Subsequent surveys serve to measure progress and the impact of initiatives and changes initiated in response to previous surveys, and also provide an opportunity to establish the roadmap for continuing to work on topics identified as needing attention.

There are many researchers and companies who specialize in assessing the culture of an organization. AAS and the American Physical Society have developed site visit programs,¹⁰ departments can request a visit. Prior to the visit, students and faculty members are invited to complete a survey to help assess the culture of the department. The Sexual Experiences Questionnaire¹¹ is considered to be among the best to measure sexual harassment. The

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⁹NIH, 2021, “Number of Principal Investigators Funded by the National Institutes of Health by Grant Mechanism and Gender,” NIH_ Principal_Investigators_by_Gender_Race_Ethnicity_and_Disability_2016-2020_02_23_2021_PDF.pdf.

¹⁰ For more on the AAS site visit program, see American Astronomical Society, 2019, “Site Visit Oversight Committee (SVOC),” https://aas.org/comms/astronomy-department-climate-site-visit-oversight-committee. For more on the APS site visit program, see American Physical Society, 2022, “Site Visits,” https://www.aps.org/programs/women/sitevisits/index.cfm.

¹¹ L.F. Fitzgerald, M.J. Gelfand, and F. Drasgow, 1995, “Measuring Sexual Harassment: Theoretical and Psychometric Advances,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 17(4):425-445; B.A. Gutek, R.O. Murphy, and B. Douma, 2004, “A Review and Critique of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ),” Law and Human Behavior 28(4):457-482, offers a review and critique of the SEQ and examines the reliability and validity of the SEQ.

Administrator Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative offers guidance in developing campus climate surveys, including a climate questionnaire.¹² The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) conducts the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey annually.¹³ NASA SMD can use these as guidelines. The committee encourages NASA to employ social scientists and survey researchers to help design and analyze the surveys. In addition to the culture surveys, exit interviews are an excellent tool with which to examine reasons for people’s departure. OPM has conducted surveys of Senior Executive Service employees.¹⁴ These might provide guidance for exit interviews.

PROMISING PRACTICES: SUSTAINING A DIVERSE SCIENCE ENTERPRISE THROUGH OUTREACH, ACCEPTANCE, AND DEVELOPMENT

Key attributes and indicators include (1) mentoring; (2) developing diverse, inclusive, respectful environments; (3) visible career pathing; and (4) diversity outreach to include STEM efforts.¹⁵ Practices in each area, except dashboards are discussed below.

Mentoring Practices. Many studies have shown the value of mentoring to broaden the research community. Mentoring can not only prepare young scientists and engineers from all backgrounds for careers with NASA but also open other opportunities in the engineering and science communities globally. Mentoring is tied to many benefits for a mentee (e.g., increased research productivity and career satisfaction), which also benefits the lab overall. Anyone can learn to be an effective mentor with the right training and practice” (NASEM 2019).

Mentoring365 is a virtual mentoring program developed among space and Earth sciences organizations to facilitate an exchange of professional knowledge, expertise, skills, insights, and experiences through dialogue and collaborative learning. The program provides mentors and mentees with structured, relationship-building tools to develop and accomplish focused career goals and a live in-person option.

Mentoring365 Live is the in-person complement at AGU meetings such as the fall meeting to the virtual Mentoring365 program. Student and early career professionals are matched with experienced meeting attendees that can help them navigate the fall meeting and develop other professional skills. Only AGU members that are attending the fall meeting are eligible to participate.

An acquisition program, the government-created Mentor-Protégé Program¹⁶ (MPP), pairs large companies with eligible small businesses (protégés) to gain capacity and win government contracts through partnerships with more experienced companies (mentors) through a regulated model for all participants. NASA has added a unique goal to consider minority serving institutions as protégés within this program. While the MPP is focused on developing potential sources to support future eligibility, the mentors in the program are encouraged and incentivized to develop enduring partnerships and business relationships, rather than future competitors. In addition to developing long-term business relationships with small business concerns, mentors also accrue credit toward small business subcontracting goals. This model of pairing organizations to enhance abilities of both organizations may be adaptable to support SMD science, research or even DEIA goals. The NASA Small Business Office is a potential partner for collaboration in this area.

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¹² For more information, see Administrator-Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative (ARC3), 2015, “ARC3 Campus Climate Survey,” https://campusclimate.gsu.edu/arc3-campus-climate-survey.

¹³ Office of Personnel Management (OPM), 2020, “Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey,” Office of Strategy and Innovation, http://www.opm.gov/FEVS.

¹⁴ OPM, 2017, SES Exit Report, Washington, DC, https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/reference-materials/ses-exit-survey-results.pdf.

¹⁵ “Respectful environment” practices are captured in “Representative Workforce” practices.

¹⁶ Implementing regulations for the SBA Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) can be found in Federal Register 85 FR 66146, https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-19428. More information on NASA’s MPP that uniquely benefits minority serving institutions as well as SBAs can be found at U.S. Small Business Administration, “SBA Mentor- Protégé Program,” https://www.sba.gov/federal-contracting/contracting-assistance-programs/sba-mentor-protege-program.

Finding: Mentoring activities have proven effective in multiple communities.

Recommendation: NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) should develop a mentor-protégé program for minority serving institutions, including historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, Asian American and Pacific Islander–serving institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian institutions, Native American–serving non-tribal institutions, predominantly Black institutions, etc., to help them train and develop principal investigators and researchers.

In addition, SMD should continue to work closely with outside professional societies—for example, the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, etc., in development and expansion of mentoring programs. This will enable NASA to collect data and engage in longitudinal tracking of its research communities.

Career pathing and support. The SMD workforce would benefit from ensuring equal access to opportunities and resources to all researchers. In a global survey of scientists, Ivie and White (2020) found that men on average had access to more career advancing opportunities and resources than women. This difference held after accounting for age, employment sector, and geographic region. While the difference is small in any one year, the small difference compounds every year leading to a growing gap between men and women (Ivie and White 2020). While the list of opportunities and resources for NASA employees will likely differ from that in the Global Survey of Scientists, it is important that NASA develop an appropriate list (or lists) and access to these career-advancing resources and opportunities (Ivie and White 2020).

This area has limited promising practices, but a number of the professional societies have developed resources. For example, AIP’s SRC data on initial career choices. The geophysical sciences also have career path resources.

Outreach to include STEM efforts. Agency-wide and within SMD, NASA is developing its own emerging practices to engage and grow nontraditional participation. Each of these programs has similar goals. Beyond outreach directly to the students, they reflect a broad geographic diversity, multiple levels of awards, engagement with the technical community and populations, teacher training and workshops and professional societies that continue to contribute to the health of the longer term SMD community. Possible outreach and STEM emerging practices include

• The Early Career Faculty (ECF) component of the Space Technology Research Grants Program awards grants to accredited U.S. universities on behalf of outstanding faculty researchers early in their careers. ECF challenges early career faculty to examine the theoretical feasibility of ideas and approaches that are critical to making science, space travel, and exploration more effective, affordable, and sustainable. Awards result from successful proposals to the ECF Appendix to the SpaceTech-REDDI NASA Research Announcement. The ECF Appendix is expected to be released annually and will feature specific topics. Awards are expected to be a maximum of three years in duration and the typical award amount is $200,000 per year.
• Additionally, in the Earth sciences, the professional societies, including AGU, the Geological Society of America, the American Meteorological Society, and the Soil Science Society of America, provide a wide portfolio of early-career awards to both recognize their scientific and social contributions and further support the professional development of these geoscience researchers.

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¹⁷ Indeed, 2021, “9 Traits of High Performers (and How to Become One),” https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/high-performers.

• Lucy Student Pipeline Accelerator and Competency Enabler (L’SPACE) Program model for undergraduate students incorporates highly experienced NASA mentors as subject matter expert instructors within their virtual 12-week workforce development academies and utilizes diverse, near-peer STEM student mentors assigned to each team as the support mechanism for their day-to-day project needs. The L’SPACE layered mentor instruction and support approach has proven especially effective in seeing workforce preparation growth (in technical components and teaming) and career pathway success (internships and job acquisition) for students who are underrepresented in STEM (e.g., females and students of color), as it allows for a more equitable, guided learning environment where students can individually close previous gaps in STEM knowledge and skills to become more competent and competitive for the STEM workforce—especially within the exploration ecosystem (Buxner 2021; Fischer and Storckdieck 2021). (For more information, go to https://LSPACE.asu.edu.)
• Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a worldwide hands-on primary and secondary school-based project that promotes collaboration among students, teachers, and scientists to conduct inquiry-based investigations about our environment. Students take measurements, analyze data, and participate in research in collaboration with scientists. NASA initiated a citizen science component, called GLOBE Observer, in 2016 that makes four protocols available for use by anyone in a GLOBE country. (For more information, go to: http://www.globe.gov.)¹⁸ Currently, other parts of NASA conduct projects and activities that SMD could use to benefit its own goals of maintaining a healthy and vital research community. SMD can coordinate with other NASA Directorates such as the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). Currently there is an active Office of STEM (OSTEM) Engagement FY 2021 NASA Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Rapid Response Research (R3) announcements where all NASA directorates are participating.
• NASA’s STMD has multiple educational opportunities that may be of interest to SMD. For example, the ECF component of the Space Technology Research Grants Program awards grants to accredited U.S. universities on behalf of outstanding faculty researchers early in their careers, and the NASA TechRise Student Challenge where teams of 6th- to 12th-grade students can submit ideas for climate or remote sensing experiments to fly on a high-altitude balloon, and space exploration experiments to fly aboard a suborbital rocket. TechRise, like many of the student programs aims to support deeper understanding of Earth science, data analysis, and electronics while engaging with NASA and technology communities.
• NASA OSTEM has the Artemis Student Challenges that matches OSTEM funds with directorate funds to solve mission-relevant problems and involves K-20 (see https://stem.nasa.gov/artemis).
• The STEM Education Strategic Plan, Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education, published in December 2018 by the White House Committee on STEM Education of the National Science and Technology Council, sets out a federal strategy for the next 5 years based on a vision for a future where all Americans will have lifelong access to high-quality STEM education. In December 2020, the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House issued the Progress Report on the Implementation of the Federal STEM Education Strategic Plan. This progress report flags opportunities for improvement, sharing strengths, and points to STEM programs that serve as “bright spots,” programs with great impact for dollars expended.
• NASA Space Technology Graduate Researchers will perform innovative, space technology research at their respective campuses and at NASA centers. Awards are made in the form of grants to accredited U.S. universities on behalf of individuals pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees, with the faculty advisor serving as the principal investigator.
• The NASA Office of STEM Engagement coordinates efforts among STEM offices across the academic community to utilize leading practices on program evaluation, assessment and gathering demographic data. Leveraging OSTEMs community of Space Grant Consortia, Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and Minority University Research Education Program (MUREP) enables access to leading practices and resources for engaging with underserved communities and connections with the

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¹⁸ NASA, “FY 2022 Budget Estimates,” fy2022_congressional_justification_nasa_budget_request.pdf.

breadth of the education community (out-of-school programs, non-profit STEM museums and centers, K-12, community colleges, MSIs, to research intensive universities).

• The Science Mission directorate also has a portfolio of education programs including the new (in 2016) Science Activation program, graduate Future Investigators in NASA Earth & Space Sciences and Technology (FINESST) fellowships, NASA Mission Design and Planetary Science Summer Schools, undergraduate NASA Internships, and the NASA Postdoc Program (NPP). All of these programs support efforts to diversify the workforce and create an inclusive research and education culture.
• The oSTEM (Out in STEM) program at the University of Michigan includes significant best practices in support of the LGBTQ+ community. It recognizes the awards portfolio needs to reflect the demographics of the state. The intent of the funding initiative is to create opportunities for University of Michigan students to transform policies and practices on campus, in the community, and on a national scale that positively impact LGBTQ+ communities.¹⁹
• A notable example of an agency effort to broaden and retain diversity in the sciences is the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program funded by NSF at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). SOARS is an undergraduate-to-graduate bridge program designed to broaden participation of historically underrepresented communities in the atmospheric and related sciences. For the past 25 years SOARS has promoted and supported research, mentoring, and community. SOARS Protégés can participate for up to four summers conducting research in atmospheric and Earth-system sciences. Given the internships can run up to 4 years, this serves to bridge the leap from undergraduate to graduate school, and many have taken advantage of multiple-year opportunities. SOARS offers comprehensive financial support for summer research, conference travel, as well as undergraduate and graduate school funding. Each protégé has a support system that includes research mentors, a writing mentor, a computing mentor, a coach who helps the student navigate unfamiliar territory and stressful situations, and peer mentors. More than 90 percent of SOARS Protégés advance to graduate school; and many have entered the workforce with the M.S. degree, and/or continued onto a Ph.D.

Over the years, SOARS has invited students from multiple STEM disciplines—including chemistry, ecology, engineering, geography, mathematics, meteorology, physics, and the social sciences—to deepen their expertise in understanding the Earth’s atmosphere. In particular, SOARS involves students from groups that are historically underrepresented in the sciences, including Black or African American, Native American, or Alaska Native, Hispanic or Latino, female, first-generation college students, veterans, and students with disabilities. SOARS welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students; students who have experienced, and worked to overcome, educational or economic disadvantages, and/or who have personal or family circumstances that may complicate their continued progress in research careers.

PROMISING PRACTICES: ESTABLISHING SUPPORTIVE FUNDING

Key attributes and indicators include consistent funding for science and health and vitality initiatives.

Consistent funding. The practice of allocating funding for the long cycle development of a workforce, or the many aspects of sustaining DEIA change, has no strong promising or emerging practices by other agencies that can be documented. However, the Department of Labor has a number of emerging programs that focus on 3-year funding cycles to develop the workforce of the future as well as recover from ongoing economic crises.

A practice observed in professional societies are the longitudinal culture surveys funded by some professional societies. For example, AAS has provided funding for surveys for the astronomy and planetary science decadal surveys as a means to advocate for the priorities of their communities. The Statistical Research Center at AIP conducted these surveys for AAS.

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¹⁹ University of Michigan, 2022, “Funding Sources for Your Organization/Programs,” https://campusinvolvement.umich.edu/article/funding-sources-your-organizationprograms.

The continual state of the profession reviews by the decadal surveys is another SMD practice to be acknowledged.

PROMISING PRACTICES: DEVELOPING RESILIENCE TO EMERGING CHALLENGES

Key attributes and indicators include robust multi-dimensional teams with visibility to risks.

Multi-dimensional teams with visibility to risks. As NASA’s science missions evolve alongside technology, the skills portfolio will evolve. Actively documenting and maintaining a skills matrix by the existing technical workforce can improve workforce planning by identifying utilized skills and concepts and evolutionary trajectories. Such planning, especially if it is openly documented, will support student and new graduate choices to be prepared for the future workspace, as well as inform experienced mission talent on areas for professional development.

Forward planning must include how research itself is changing and researcher skillfulness and skill sets are evolving. A research community with broad research knowledge coupled with specific expertise is most capable.

For example, the oil and gas industry in Europe over the past two decades has managed the constant change in skill demand within their operational and prospective work portfolio by having employees document the technical, business, and social skills used in their employment, creating a skills pathway to their current position. By aggregating these pathways, the companies were able to develop a skills matrix, much like the existing Department of Labor sponsored Career One Stop pyramids, such as the geospatial career skills matrix. Specific operational roles and areas are then mapped within the broader skills portfolio so that early-career employees can chart their development path to their goal positions in senior technical or management roles.

This approach also provided strategic planning guidance on how skills evolved with changing demands and technology in the industry and informing leadership of prospective changes to the workforce based on expected developments, such as the shift to green energy and the utilization of machine learning tools. This has led to an increased need for skills in the resources sector for chemistry, material science, systems engineering, and social license development, while a decrease in aggregate demand for select “traditional” geologic skills such as stratigraphic and seismic interpretation.

Beyond tracking, promising practices include actions to influence and support positive trends. Key promising practices include benchmarking other agencies (NIH, NSF) efforts to hold proposal workshops for MSIs.

PROMISING PRACTICES: COMMUNITY STANDARDS OF CONDUCT

Key attributes and indicators include clearly established policy and self-policing processes.

NIH and NSF have developed promising community standards of conduct. As mentioned in Chapter 2, beyond ethics, the AGU Ethics Center is a good example of centralizing many diverse aspects of ethics and conduct:

• NSF establishes clear performance expectations as well as provides expectations and requirements for awareness, compliance, and reporting of the awardees’ civil rights.
• NIH maintains explicit standards for the grant receiving community.
• The AGU Ethics and Equality Center collects resources on anti-harassment, data and publishing, diversity, and ethics in science. It was recognized by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) with the first annual Equity Award for advancing DEI recognizing excellence in marketing and communication.

THE BRIGHT FUTURE NASA SMD CAN ENABLE

SMD is a global enterprise, impacting space and Earth science across the globe, and continues to attract talented scientists from the United States and abroad to engage in SMD’s mission. Strongly interacting with international partners on other missions provides a great opportunity to capture additional science research and extend our knowledge, collaboratively building on our continuing relationships. The Mars Sample Return Mission is an example of combining U.S. and international efforts to achieve the science of the 2013 planetary decadal study’s

designated flagship mission. If SMD continues to make a strong effort at improving the health and vitality across its research communities, the resulting model will also become an example to other organizations and researchers to emulate and can yield a more productive, innovative, and diverse global research community.

This report recognizes the need for continued assessments of changes within SMD (and NASA more broadly), as well as SMD’s many touchpoints, including the current researchers engaged in today’s discovery, but also, maybe equally importantly, those researchers who will engage in the excitement of future space and Earth science. The future of research is reflected and embodied by its researchers, a world of individuals influenced by and part of a larger ecosphere, changing and evolving. Their new ideas and energy will contribute to the excitement and discovery in ways yet to be seen. As SMD acts as a catalyst for the change that supports its growth, it encourages new entrants, full representation, novel approaches, and new findings. Conditions in the future will not merely replicate present ones. Preparation for a changed future will require that SMD reach across communities and constituencies. The committee looks forward to the new perspectives and resulting new discovery, as SMD, and hopefully NASA overall advocate for and reinforce expectations of the space and Earth science community to push for acceptance beyond inclusion, building the confidence and competence of every member as they enable broader and more exciting revelations.