NSF Faculty Travel Grant

NSF-funded Faculty Travel Grant Program

  

About

This program, first awarded funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2024, seeks to financially support U.S. faculty from under-resourced two- and four-year institutions to facilitate their participation in the annual AGU conference.

Faculty at under-resourced two- and four-year institutions often have higher teaching loads and do not have access to significant travel funds, making it more difficult for them to attend scientific conferences. Attendance at conferences allows faculty to establish connections to other researchers and bring back the latest innovations in research and teaching to their classrooms. 

In addition to funding to support registration and some travel expenses, the travel grant awardees have participated in professional development workshops, engaged in networking and social events, listened to NSF program officers, and reviewed student presentations. Feedback on the initiative has been combined from multiple award years to inform a manuscript on the design and impact of these programs. 

Anchored in a Community of Practice (CoP) framework (Manduca and Kastens, 2018), this travel grant program recognizes each participant’s unique contributions via their engagement at the AGU annual conference. The AGU annual conference serves as a hub for gathering, building, recruiting, fostering individual growth, and collective capacity-building.

   

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Questions?

Please contact Brielle Bennett at AGU via aguorganizationaladvancement@agu.org

Goals

The goal of the program is to build a foundation for a longer-term sustainable program to expand opportunities for faculty at non-R1 primarily undergraduate institutions in the AGU annual conference. By expanding access, it can strengthen geoscience education where it has the greatest potential to influence early-career students. The program's primary objective is to offer travel stipends to support early-to-mid-career geoscience faculty at under-resourced U.S. 2- and 4-year colleges and universities (including ERIs, MSIs and 2YCs) to attend the AGU annual conference. 

In conjunction with the travel support, the program will use this disciplinary society annual conference as a platform for leadership, professional development, and capacity-building activities for the cohort participants. This approach is intended to build both individual capacity and community capacity.

  

Who is eligible to apply? 

  • Are you an early- to mid-career geoscience faculty member? 
  • Do you work at a two-year college (2YC) or four-year college/university (4YC)?
  • Are you a US citizen or permanent resident? (Individuals on visas are not eligible)
  • Are you interested in attending the 2025 American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual conference in New Orleans, LA?
  • Do you need financial assistance to cover travel expenses in order to attend this conference? 

  

If your answers are ‘yes’ to all of these questions, you are welcome to apply at:  https://www.agu.org/honors/ftg 

  

  

Figure Caption: An annotated conceptual model of community of practice system dynamics that build individual and community capacities through reinforcing feedback loops. Modified from Kastens and Manduca (2018). Annotations in blue text are proposed project elements (e.g., activities and characteristics) situated in the theoretical context.