The 2020 Conference on Increasing Participation of MSIs in National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Core Programs, held in Arlington, Va. in February 2020, brought together more than 90 MSI science, computing, and engineering faculty and researchers with the goal of increasing the number and competitiveness of MSI researchers’ proposals to CISE core programs.

ASEE facilitated an intensive Proposal Development Workshop on Increasing Participation of MSIs in NSF CISE Core Programs in spring 2021, aligned to help prepare MSI teams to submit proposals to the inaugural 2021 NSF CISE-MSI program solicitation. This event brought together 12 research teams from MSIs for a workshop focused on learning best practices for writing NSF proposals within the CISE context.

The CyBR-MSI program, aligned to the 2022 NSF CISE-MSI program solicitation, expanded upon the scope of the 2021 workshop to provide more extensive engagement and support for participants throughout the entire proposal development process and, including training for team formation, an expanded mentoring program, and provision of seed funding.

The Minority-Serving Institutional Readiness for Federal Grant Preparation Workshop (MSI-RFP), a collaborative virtual workshop and Community of Practice (CoP) focused on institutional research readiness, was held in June 2022 for 21 participants representing 9 MSIs. The workshop resulted in the development of the pilot Research Infrastructure Assessment Tool (RIAT), a self-assessment of an individual’s understanding of Sponsored Research Office (SRO) services available at one’s institution.

The 2022-2023 NSF CyBR-MSI: PDW was a five-part virtual proposal development workshop held in December 2022 – January 2023, designed to prepare researchers to develop and submit proposals for the 2023 NSF CISE-MSI Program Solicitation (NSF 22-518).

The Capacity Building for Research at Minority-Serving Institutions: Infrastructure Research Readiness (CyBR-MSI: IRR) program was held from January – June 2023, with the following goals: (1) to help participants assess their campuses’ research infrastructure and prioritize improvements; (2) to form a community of practice among researchers and research infrastructure administrators from MSIs focused on capacity building of research infrastructure; and (3) to co-create, with campus leadership, an action plan for research ready infrastructure for strong grant proposals for NSF CISE Core programs. Cohort II of CyBR-MSI: IRR commenced in January 2024.