About Us
The NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NSF EPSCoR) is a nationwide research and education effort administered by the National Science Foundation. The mission of NSF EPSCoR is to help the NSF to "strengthen research and education in science and engineering throughout the United States and to avoid undue concentration of such research and education." States and territories which in recent years have received less than 0.75% of the NSF's total national funding are eligible for EPSCoR funding. 28 states and territories (see map) currently meet this criteria.
Alaska has had an NSF EPSCoR program since 2001. Alaska’s main source of EPSCoR funding is its 5-year “Track-1” project, entitled “Interface of Change: Building collaborations to assess harvested and farmed marine species prioritized by Gulf of Alaska communities facing environmental shifts."
Track-1 awards support large-scale, complex research and outreach programs within
a single EPSCoR jurisdiction.
Track-2 awards go to teams of researchers from multiple EPSCoR jurisdictions working
on a single project.
Track-3 awards were given to projects by EPSCoR jurisdictions to broaden participation
of underrepresented groups in STEM.
Track-4 awards, now called EPSCoR Fellows, fund researchers in EPSCoR jurisdictions
to undertake collaborations with major research centers.
RII-C2 awards funded cyberconnectivity improvements in EPSCoR jurisdictions.
Other Federal STEM Capacity-Building Programs in Alaska
The U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Defense also run EPSCoR programs, and the National Institutes of Health run similar programs called COBRE and INBRE. In addition to Alaska NSF EPSCoR, federal EPSCoR/INBRE funding to the University of Alaska goes to support the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, Alaska NASA EPSCoR, the Center for Alaska Native Health Research, Alaska INBRE and BLaST.
