Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Directorate for STEM Education
The NSF's IUSE: EDU program supports innovative projects to enhance undergraduate STEM education, focusing on teaching advancements and societal impact.
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation
Due Dates: January 20, 2027 (ICT Capacity-Building and Level 1; ESL Level 1) | July 21, 2027 (ICT Level 2; ESL Levels 2–3) | Rolling (Conferences, after consultation)
Funding Amounts: $200,000–$2,000,000 award range; category-specific maximum durations of 2–5 years; approximately $61 million annually
Summary: Supports evidence-based, knowledge-generating projects that improve undergraduate STEM learning and transform institutional teaching practices.
Key Information: Each individual may serve as PI or co-PI on at most three proposals per October 1–September 30 period.
Description
The NSF Directorate for STEM Education’s IUSE: EDU program supports novel, creative, and transformative approaches to improving undergraduate STEM education. It funds development, implementation, and research that bring advances in STEM knowledge into undergraduate education, incorporate evidence-based teaching practices, and lay the groundwork for institutional improvement. All STEM fields supported by NSF are included.
The program has two tracks: Engaged Student Learning (ESL), focused on teaching practices, curricular innovations, and student engagement and outcomes; and Institutional and Community Transformation (ICT), focused on implementing and sustaining effective STEM teaching through organizational change. Projects should generate knowledge useful beyond their host institutions. Replication and adaptation studies, instructor professional development, institutional partnerships, and conferences addressing undergraduate STEM education challenges are also supported.
