The annual Understanding Interventions that Broaden Participation in Science conference is the leading in-person opportunity for practitioners to interact, share experiences and solutions, and learn from experts outside their professional domain about innovations in many forms?theories, methods, tools?that could inform interventions with students, faculty, decision makers, and policymakers. The UI Conference provides a forum for the dissemination and distillation of translational interventions research resulting from competitive grants awarded by funding agencies such as the NSF and NlH. The overall goal of this five-year conference plan is to reach a capacity double that of the current UI model through the following specific aims: 1. Understanding Interventions will organize and implement an annual conference that will include training workshops, symposia, deeper dive sessions, poster sessions, and organized networking opportunities. Travel support will be given to enable greater graduate student, post-doctoral, and junior faculty participation in conference activities. 2. Understanding Interventions will provide outreach that takes interventions scholarship to five professional society meetings that have a history of being attentive to not only research, but also training in broadening participation. These meetings include but are not limited to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), Experimental Biology (EB), Society for Neuroscience, and American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Physics (API), or The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). It will aggressively advertise and market the annual conference to those disciplines not historically well represented such as chemistry, physics, computer science, and engineering. 3. Understanding Interventions will host webinars that provide skills development and aid in dissemination of research on broadening participation in science.
Understanding Interventions that Broaden Participation in Science (UI) provides a platform for the dissemination of scholarship and training related to interventions research and evaluation, with foci that include student development, especially those underrepresented in STEM, flexible research training as the foundation for a variety of career pathways, and the integration of excellence and equity to produce and renew an inclusive research enterprise. Whether considered a platform, a clearinghouse, or a technical assistance organization and conference, UI has established an infrastructure that serves a diverse community of practitioners, offering an inclusive and supportive environment that facilitates dialogue on the translation of research into practice, and has fostered collaborations for sharing and adapting successful strategies in a variety of institutional and disciplinary contexts. As such, UI bridges the key questions of what works and why.
