The National Alliance for Broader Impacts: First Year Impacts of NABI

The National Alliance for Broader Impacts is an NSF-funded Research Coordination Network whose intent is to bring together professionals in broader impact work, science outreach, and community engagement and who work with scientists to convey the importance of research to society. NABI was funded in 2014 and brings together a steering committee representing six IHEs and through its evolving network a community of some 80 institutions and organizations. In its first year, the NABI network is beginning to develop and share resources that will help the field of broader impact professionals involve scientists in meaningful and productive endeavors to share their science with society. A working group from NABI is writing a document titled—Broader Impacts, Guiding Principles and Questions for National Science Foundation Principal Investigators and Proposal Reviewersthat will spur conversations around effective Broader Impact activities. This draft document is being vetted within the NABI community and will be shared at the AAAS meeting if finalized. Additional first year projects for NABI were to develop a communication plan and tools for sharing of resources and ideas for the Broader Impact NABI community. NABI is serving as one of the trial groups to utilize the new Trellis platform of AAAS. Nearly one hundred NABI members are part of the NABI group on Trellis. Also several issues of the NABI E-Newsletter have been produced and serve to share valuable information for BI professionals. This poster will highlight the advances of NABI and share how it is emerging as a community of practice for professionals that interface between the research communities and the general public with the goal of informing society at large of the products and value of the research enterprise.