NSF funds over $50M in new partnerships to broaden participation in materials science.

The IMOD community were collaborating partners in two of the successful awards.

In July of 2024 NSF announced $50M in funding for the Partnerships for Research in Education in Materials (PREM) program. 15 collaborative research projects were selected nationwide to expand participation and access to materials science-focused facilities, education, training and careers. This included $4M each to 11 partnering institutions over six years, and $1M in seed funding to each of four additional institutions over three years. IMOD were collaborating partners with one full award and one seed award.

“Supporting the scientific talent present in every community in our country is imperative to strengthening the nation’s materials research infrastructure, which is central to everything from semiconductors to medical implants,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “NSF is dedicated to empowering everyone who wants to shape our scientific future for the benefit of their communities and the U.S. research community at large.”

PEAQS: Partnership for Education and Advancement of Quantum and nano-Sciences at Fort Lewis and Norfolk State University is a partnership with IMOD. This will directly support more than 80 undergraduate and high school students at Fort Lewis College, a non-tribal Native American-serving institution in Durango, Colorado, and Norfolk State University, a historically Black university in Virginia.

VISION: Venture for Innovation in Self-assembly and Integration of Optoelectronic Nanostructures at the University of California Merced is a three year seed funded program that will develop a new partnership and will be eligible to compete for full PREM funding in the next award cycle.

Congratulations to the teams that led these proposals and we are excited to see how these programs develop.