Online Toolkit for Writing Your NSF Proposal's Broader Impacts Statement
If you're planning to apply for a NSF grant, read on!
A free, comprehensive online toolkit is available to help you develop the Broader Impacts statement for your NSF grant proposal.
NSF requires a Broader Impacts (BI) statement in grant proposals so that it can ensure that a project it funds with taxpayer dollars has the potential to benefit society. In your proposal’s BI statement, you'll need to clearly communicate the potential of your research—both to reviewers who are experts in the research field as well as to the broader public—by answering these questions:
- How can my work benefit society?
- How can it help solve challenges facing communities?
- How can I partner with communities to expand the exchange of information, ideas, and expertise in ways that benefit society?
Funded by an NSF grant and designed by staff at the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) and Rutgers University, the ARIS Broader Impacts Toolkit is a free online resource that provides you with planning and evaluation tools to ensure your Broader Impacts statement effectively conveys the potential of your research to benefit society.
Get started developing your BI statement with these links:
-Broader Impacts Wizard: step-by-step guidance and key questions to assist you in identifying your project’s target audience, setting your BI Plan objectives, evaluation tasks, BI budget and needed resources, and takeaway message
-Planning Checklist: how to outline an effective and responsive BI statement
For applicants and proposal reviewers, the website also offers helpful resources for evaluating a BI statement:
-Tutorial for evaluating a BI plan
-NSF's Guiding Principles: Understand NSF’s review criteria
-BI project evaluation rubric: Detailed assessment guide for reviewers of BI statements
Take advantage of this comprehensive resource in the early stages of developing your grant application. Lastly, be sure to also check out NSF’s article offering five tips and other resources for writing your BI statement.