Strategic Communications for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (SCAC)

The societal value of cyberinfrastructure (CI) impacts on science and engineering research are not as evident or understandable to the public as they should be. Targeted communications can strengthen the understanding of the connection between publicly supported CI resources and U.S. competitiveness, health, and security. Strategic communication satisfies the long-term goals of an organization by facilitating advanced planning and implementation, developing consistent messaging, and enabling successful information sharing.

It involves clarifying messages, managing information flow, and cultivating an organization’s image over a long-term horizon, and serves to enhance the strategic positioning of an institution. The principal investigator (PI) proposes a two-part strategic communications research project with objectives to:

1. Identify the key goals, objectives, audiences, and messages, by which to elevate the awareness and understanding of the value of NSF-funded CI for the U.S; and

2. Develop a framework for strategic communication that can be applied by NSF’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC), its funded projects, principal investigators, and partners, to build support for CI investment nationwide.

The research will gather CI successes of NSF and its awardees, as well as broaden conversations about CI in government, the media, and society, and seek to find means by which to best advance the goals of NSF and OAC. Strategic Communications for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (SCAC) has the potential to advance methods for capture of knowledge and visions, for engaging CI leaders, practitioners, and stakeholders, and for synthesizing these perspectives into digestible forms for community use.

Project impacts will include broadening the corpus of research on scientific communications and strategy and serve as a reference point for organizations and academic institutions seeking to contribute to the advancement of CI in the U.S. The effort will directly engage underrepresented minority-serving institutions to tailor communications across a more diverse community of stakeholders and potential participants.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.