Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM (CCE STEM) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant program designed to support basic research on how ethical STEM researchers are formed and how ethical research practices take root and persist across the many science and engineering fields that NSF funds. The focus is not simply on teaching compliance rules, but on understanding what "ethical STEM research and practice" actually looks like in real settings and why certain environments consistently produce more responsible, fair, and integrity-driven scientific work than others. At its core, the program seeks evidence-based insight into the cultural, institutional, and day-to-day factors that shape whether research communities operate responsibly (or drift toward irresponsible, unjust, or harmful practices within sociotechnical systems).

The opportunity invites projects that investigate which contexts, norms, and structures promote ethical conduct and how those mechanisms work. The solicitation explicitly points to a wide range of possible influences that applicants can study, such as honor codes; professional ethics codes; licensing requirements; commitments to service and service-learning; lifelong learning expectations; ethics-oriented curricula; participation in organizations that emphasize humanitarian goals and social responsibility (for example, Engineers Without Borders); and institutional missions that support or serve underrepresented groups. It also highlights structural and pedagogical approaches that may influence ethical behavior and integrity, including cultivating research integrity at multiple levels of an institution, embedding ethics across the curriculum, emphasizing group work, or adopting alternative grading practices (including not grading). Another major theme is the idea of localized "culture" within labs or departments: for instance, whether certain labs develop a strong culture of academic integrity, what specific practices sustain that culture, and how those practices might be adapted and transferred into other research or learning environments.

A key requirement is that strong proposals include a comparative dimension. This means projects should compare different settings (or sub-settings within the same institution) that vary along meaningful factors, such as different integrity policies, different training models, different institutional missions, or different lab-level norms. Comparative research is central because NSF is looking for generalizable knowledge about what actually drives ethical outcomes, rather than isolated descriptions of a single program. The expected payoff is a clearer, research-grounded understanding of what counts as responsible versus irresponsible practice, what counts as just versus unjust scientific systems, and how students and trainees can best be helped to learn, internalize, and apply that knowledge in the contexts where they study and conduct research.

In terms of eligibility and participation, proposals could be submitted only by accredited US universities and colleges (including two-year and four-year institutions and community colleges) with a US-based campus, acting on behalf of their faculty. Other organizations could participate, but only as non-lead collaborators or subawardees; the same is true for professional associations, which could be included as collaborators rather than as the lead applicant. NSF also emphasized team composition: competitive projects were expected to include the right mix of expertise, which could include disciplinary STEM expertise relevant to the context being studied, as well as expertise in ethics and values, evaluation, and pedagogy, depending on the research questions and design.

Programmatically, this was a discretionary NSF grant opportunity in the broad area of science and technology and other research and development, tied to multiple NSF CFDA areas spanning engineering, mathematical and physical sciences, geosciences, computer and information science and engineering, biological sciences, social, behavioral, and economic sciences, education and human resources, and the office of international science and engineering. NSF anticipated making around eight awards, with an estimated total funding level of about $3.05 million, and there was no cost sharing or matching requirement stated. The solicitation particularly encouraged submissions from minority-serving institutions (including Tribal Colleges and Universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions), as well as womens colleges and institutions that primarily serve persons with disabilities, reflecting an interest in understanding ethical STEM formation across diverse institutional contexts and student populations.

Administratively, the opportunity was originally posted in March 2014 and included multiple annual full proposal deadlines (June 17, 2014; February 17, 2015; February 16, 2016; February 15, 2017; and February 15, 2018). The listing provided indicates that the opportunity is now archived, meaning it is no longer accepting submissions under that specific solicitation number (NSF Publication/Funding Opportunity Number 14-546). For historical reference and full details, the announcement was associated with NSF Publication 14-546, and general submission access issues were directed to grants.gov support.

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