FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces New Multi-Sector Actions to Eliminate Systemic Barriers in STEMM

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is announcing a new set of bold cross-sector actions that will help propel our nation toward a more equitable science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) ecosystem. These commitments build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s national vision and earlier announcements to expand access and opportunity across science and technology field and bolster America’s global competitiveness.

At the first White House Summit on Equity and Excellence in STEMM, the STEMM Opportunity Alliance (SOA) – a first-of-its-kind national initiative to lead and coordinate cross-sector action to help achieve greater equity across STEMM fields – was launched with more than $1 billion in work and investments expanding opportunities in STEMM.

As a part of today’s White House Summit on STEMM Equity and Excellence: Propelling Progress and Prosperity by 2050, SOA’s broad coalition now represents more than 200 organizations and has powered additional commitments towards STEMM equity which now brings the total to $2 billion. That commitment will help drive progress against STEMM Equity and Excellence 2050 – a first-of-its kind strategic plan for achieving equity and excellence in the American STEMM ecosystem, released today by SOA.

To move from shared goals to aligned action, below are examples of the SOA commitments announced today. View the full list of SOA funders, partners, and private commitments. These efforts join actions recently completed by the federal government in support of STEM education and equity-related work.

Actions to promote accountability, track progress, and build systems for cross-sector collaboration

A total of 46 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to these areas of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• American Institutes for Research will serve as the SOA anchor partner coordinating efforts across partners aimed at building stronger data and metrics on STEMM equity to improve accountability.
• Uber: Uber will fund significant action within the tech sector to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in 2024 and 2025, including by collaborating with the Tech Accountability Coalition to help establish a consistent and comparable measurement framework.
• Creating Pathways and Access for Student Success (CPASS) Foundation: The CPASS Foundation in collaboration with their partners will build a cloud-based database to track students across programs in Illinois, including to align measurements on STEMM interest, career aspirations, identity, and academic success.
• SciTech Institute: The SciTech Institute will develop a STEM Ecosystem Charter to formalize partnerships with local ecosystem leads across the state of Arizona, to enable collaborative funding opportunities and information sharing.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government:

• Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration: The Economic Development Administration’s Good Jobs Challenge program partnered with the Census Bureau to develop an innovative data tracking system which provides individual-level data on program outcomes.

Actions to nurture curiosity in every child and increase access to high-quality learning

A total of 81 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to this area of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• STEM Next Opportunity Fund and the TIES Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM will serve as SOA anchor partners coordinating efforts across partners aimed at improving access to high-quality out of school and informal educational programming for K-12 students nationwide.
• Battelle: Battelle will serve as a new Network host for the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network (SITG!), a growing program founded by the Cleveland Browns Foundation and committed to increasing student attendance and decreasing chronic absenteeism – challenges that became more pronounced since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among low-income students.
• Microsoft: Microsoft recently launched a refreshed version of FarmBeats for Students, a hands-on educational program that empowers educators to introduce students to fundamental concepts in data science, coding, and AI through the lens of agriculture and sustainability.
• Boys and Girls Club of Dundee Township (BGCDT): The Boys & Girls Clubs of Dundee Township, which serves 2,000 youth from underserved and underrepresented communities at 14 locations in the Northwest Chicago suburbs, has secured $8 million in public and private funds to convert a closed school into a 45,000-square-foot STEM Impact Center.
• Regeneron: Regeneron committed $5 million over five years to bolstering the STEM ecosystem in Nashville, TN, as part of Together For CHANGE, a 10-year health and STEM equity initiative. This includes a nearly $1.6 million allocation to establish YPIE Regeneron Science Research, replicating a successful Yonkers, NY-based program. It aims to address the need for science research in underserved schools and create opportunities for motivated scholars from historically underrepresented backgrounds to pursue STEM careers.
• Code Savvy: Code Savvy will partner with the MN State Colleges IT and Engineering Centers of Excellence to help prepare students with the digital-creative skills they will need to be innovators, entrepreneurs, and change makers in a post-AI society.
• 2030STEM: Over the next year, 2030STEM will build a network of champions who have a record of success mentoring traditionally underrepresented communities across STEM fields.
• Brown Girls Code (BGC): Building on its recently launched Math Academy and Cyber Academy, by 2025 BGC will launch four more academies in the areas of digital arts, entrepreneurship, gaming, and new technologies to promote specialization for black and brown girls in its afterschool, hybrid, and virtual programs.
• Discover Engineering (DiscoverE): DiscoverE will create 10 million additional K-12 engineering experiences with a focus on ensuring 5 million are with underrepresented students by 2030.
• Science Friday Initiative: Science Friday will engage at least 7,000 learners from around the US in neuroscience-based mental health and wellness activities in 2024, guided by leading experts in the field of youth mental health, brain development, and wellness.

• STEM Next Opportunity Fund: Building on the success of the Million Girls Moonshot that engaged 2 million girls and 4 million young people total, STEM Next Opportunity Fund is committed to inspiring 20 million more young people with STEM opportunities by 2027.

• The Scratch Foundation: In 2024, the Scratch Foundation will launch “100 Million More,” a campaign to create the next generation of Scratch, integrating its core principles of projects, passion, peers, and play with enhanced new technology that will create a sustainable, safe, and scalable Scratch for a growing global community.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government:

• AmeriCorps: AmeriCorps grants awards to organizations that focus on providing strong foundations for STEMM and digital literacy to students and community members through public computer centers, schools, and after-school programs.
• Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program continues to use education to build the foundation for resilience to extreme weather and climate change. In 2022, the program supported 2,000 educators, 6,000 students, and 7,000 youth and adults.
• Environmental Protection Agency: The EPA’s Community Engagement & STEM Education Program (CE-STEM) in Research Triangle Park (RTP) leverages RTP’s world-class research facilities to support student and educator engagement with EPA scientists and engineers. In FY2022, RTP CE-STEM supported the STEM education to careers pipeline by participating in 350+ STEM educational events, reaching 19,298 students and educators.
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Through the Next Generation STEM Project, NASA has awarded approximately $3.7M to 17 museums, science centers, and other informal education institutions to engage underserved communities in a variety of STEM learning opportunities including exhibits, mentorship, educational content, and hands-on activities.

Actions to build a STEMM educator workforce that is representative of student demographics

A total of 56 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to this area of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• Beyond100K will serve as the SOA anchor partner coordinating efforts across partners aimed at ending the K-12 STEMM teacher shortage. This includes efforts to increase the number and diversity of organizations around the country making commitments to recruit, prepare, and retain 150,000 STEM teachers by 2032, especially for schools serving majority Black, Latinx, and Native American students.
• Education Development Center (EDC): EDC will use a new five-year, $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program to expand their Math for All professional learning program to schools in Illinois, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York, reaching an estimated 960 teachers and 44,800 students in Grades 3 through 8.
• Techbridge Girls: Techbridge Girls will invest in professional training and development opportunities for 2,000 educators annually, which will impact approximately 20,000 youth each year.
• American Museum of Natural History (AMNH): Over the next 2 years, AMNH aims to prepare 44 highly-qualified Earth science teachers for high-needs schools through its Teaching Earth Sciences Residency program, serve at least 900 teachers annually through the Urban Advantage program, and serve 60 diverse students annually through the Science Research Mentoring Program.
• Kansas State University College of Education: The College of Education formulated a new group representing grant-based programs and faculty that develops strategies to support the recruitment, preparation, and retention of teachers of color from diverse populations nationally and internationally.
• National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI): The National Math and Science Initiative will provide quality evidence-based professional development to 4,800 STEM teachers identifying as Black, Latino, or Indigenous by 2027.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government:

• Department of Education: The Department of Education continues to work with states to provide technical assistance using the $19 billion in Title I funding to sustain key activities funded by the American Rescue Plan, such as increasing academic achievement, supporting students’ mental health, expanding access to preschool, and strengthening teacher recruitment and retention.

• National Science Foundation: NSF launched the EducateAI Initiative to facilitate professional development opportunities and communities of practice that will ensure K-12, community college, and four-year college educators have the skills necessary to effectively teach artificial intelligence (AI) concepts.

Actions to create opportunity for all in higher education and make STEMM programs more accessible and inclusive

A total of 90 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to this area of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) and University Innovation Alliance (UIA) will serve as SOA anchor partners coordinating efforts across partners to ensure higher education institutions and their STEMM programs are accessible, inclusive, and designed to support students and faculty from historically excluded and marginalized populations.
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is investing approximately $5 million in a Creating Equitable Pathways to STEM Graduate Education portfolio, which supports educational pathways from Minority Serving Institutions to master’s and doctoral programs in astronomy, biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, statistics and other disciplines.
• Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation: In 2024, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will devote $1.6M over the next four years to implementing a special initiative to fund demonstration projects that enhance equity and inclusion for nurses with disabilities in schools of nursing and their affiliated clinical sites.
• American Institute of Physics (AIP): The American Institute of Physics, in a collective action of its physical science member organizations aims to create a culture of inclusion and support to advance the success of Black students earning their physics and astronomy bachelor’s degrees through 2030 and beyond by offering financial aid, mentoring, academic support initiative, and prioritizing successful outcomes for undergraduate students through the TEAM-UP Together initiative.
• National Science Policy Network: National Science Policy Network will create, support, and grow a diverse community of early career researchers engaged in science policy by investing in targeted programming like the HBCU/MSI Science Policy College Tour, which creates a point of access into the field of science policy at HBCUs and other Minority Serving Institutions.
• Rockhurst University: Rockhurst University will support low-income students majoring in STEM by offering more than $600,000 in financial assistance and pairing student cohorts with faculty mentors over the next six years via the NSF-funded S-STEM grant.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government:

• Department of Agriculture: The USDA announced a $262.5 million investment to support 33 projects across U.S. institutions of higher education designed to train the next generation of diverse agricultural professionals.
• Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: NOAA’s José E. Serrano Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI) represents a long-term commitment to ensuring NOAA’s future workforce is representative of the nation’s population.
• Department of Energy: The DOE initiated a STEMM pilot program (Faculty Applied Clean Energy Sciences) to offer a unique opportunity to foster the growth of STEM faculty from MSIs through exposure to the National Lab systems.

Actions to leverage diverse minds in R&D

A total of 41 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to this area of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• Morgan State University and Spelman College will serve as SOA anchor partners coordinating efforts across partners aimed at strengthening research infrastructure at HBCUs and other MSIs and ensuring researchers from historically excluded and marginalized communities receive equitable opportunities for funding, career navigation, and support. The Office of Research, Innovation, and Collaboration at Spelman College are collaborating with colleagues that are part of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Research Development Collaborative to implement the recently NSF-funded project to reduce systemic barriers to competitiveness and strengthen the research enterprise within the AUC and ultimately, the nation.
• Doris Duke Foundation (DDF): The Doris Duke Foundation is investing $15 million in its Racial Equity in Clinical Equations Initiative, a project aimed at using research and Civic Science activities to address the misuse of race in clinical algorithms guiding diagnosis and clinical care.
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF): BWF will increase the Postdoctoral Diversity Enrichment Program (PDEP) awards to 25 annually over the next three years at an investment of $4.5 million. In addition, the Charles H. Revson Foundation has partnered with the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to invest $900,000 in making up to 15 additional awards.
• Pennsylvania Alliance for STEM Education (PASTEM): Using the National Center for Biotechnology Information databases, undergraduate bioengineering students at University of California at Berkeley and Drexel University are collaborating with members of the PASTEM and Ziro Studio developer team to leverage Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to explore STEMM progress.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government: 

• Department of Energy: The DOE Office of Science (SC) established a requirement that all research proposals submitted to SC include a plan for Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER).

• National Science Foundation: Through its Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Equity and Diversity (GRANTED) initiative, the National Science Foundation invested $20M to support the development of research support and service infrastructure at minority-serving institutions and emerging research institutions.

Actions to ensure all workers thrive and build more inclusive and supportive workplaces

A total of 47 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to this area of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• Jobs for the Future (JFF) will serve as the SOA anchor partner coordinating efforts across partners aimed at removing barriers to identifying, hiring, retaining, developing, and promoting persons from historically excluded and marginalized backgrounds. This includes launching a new effort led by JFF’s the Center for Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work (CAIFW) and its Center for Racial Economic Equity to better understand the key factors influencing how AI is positioned to accelerate economic equity, with a particular focus on Black learners and workers and other populations who face systemic barriers in our education and workforce systems.
• 3M: As part of its commitment to providing 5 million STEMM and skilled trades learning experiences for individuals from marginalized and underrepresented groups by 2025, 3M is pledging $16 million in 2024 to support STEMM and workforce development initiatives.
• Smithsonian Science Education Center, Smithsonian Institution and Johnson & Johnson (J&J): The Smithsonian Science Education Center with the support of Johnson & Johnson will host a one-day workshop following the SOA Launch event to explore synergies among national STEMM and STEMM education leaders to create equitable access to healthcare and life sciences career pathways and reduce barriers to thriving in these fields for historically underrepresented youth.
• Kapor Center: The Kapor Center family of organizations will continue its longstanding commitment to equity by launching a new $10M multi-year commitment to build the future pipeline of Black, Latine, and Native tech talent; promoting responsible, equitable, and ethical AI in K-12 education; advancing equitable technology policy; and expanding venture investment in gap-closing technology solutions.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government:

• Department of Commerce United States Patent and Trademark Office: USPTO launched the inaugural cohort of the Master Teacher of Invention and Intellectual Property Education Program (MTIP) to cultivate a national network of teacher leaders who will empower educators to foster invention and intellectual property education for the next generation of creative thinkers, problem solvers, inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

• Department of Education: The Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) launched Unlocking Career Success, 64 which is an interagency initiative that reimagines how our nation’s high schools prepare all students to thrive in their future careers.

• Department of Veteran’s Affairs: VA expanded eligibility under the Edith Nourse Rogers STEM Scholarship program to allow scholarships for those enrolled in dual-secondary degrees and health care professionals completing clinical training to become licensed to practice in a state or locality.

Actions to leverage strategic communications to improve representation of STEMM in entertainment and media

A total of 26 non-federal organizations are committing to concrete work and actions aligned to this area of need. Example organizations and commitments include:

• The Geena Davis Institute (GDI) will serve as the SOA anchor partner coordinating efforts across partners aimed at ensuring depictions of STEMM professionals in entertainment and media align with national demographics and illustrate the importance of diversity in STEMM. This work includes launching an initiative in partnership with #girlsdream that amplifies the voices of girls engaging in STEM as well as the organizations supporting girls in their STEM journey.

• Lyda Hill Philanthropies: The Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC), in partnership with the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) and with the support of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, announces the launch of the new IF/THEN® Champions Network, a nationwide community of ASTC science centers, museums, allied organizations, and individuals committed to advancing gender equity at their institutions through use of the IF/THEN® Collection.
• Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS): SEDS is launching the Space for All Spring Challenge program, which will award up to $30,000 in research funding to students from Minority Serving Institutions and underrepresented backgrounds.

The efforts above complement recent actions by the federal government:

• Department of Commerce United States Patent and Trademark Office: In February of 2023, the USPTO officially launched EquIPHQ.org, a new online invention education hub designed to increase knowledge about the impact and role of intellectual property in STEMM education.

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration: NASA greatly expanded Spanish language communications, including releasing the pilot season of Universo Curioso de la NASA, which ranked number one on Apple Podcasts in 6 countries, in the top 50 for science shows on Apple Podcasts U.S., and was selected as a “Podcast we loved in 2023” by Apple Latin America.

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