Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Towards a Better Understanding of Retention and Support of the STEM Pipeline and Workforce

(Innovations in Science and Technology)

The proposed session looks at brand new research on the STEM research pipeline and workforce: factors affecting persistence of women and minorities at the graduate and doctoral levels; how selection of STEM fellowships affects scientific research; and factors associated with retention of women in the STEM research workforce. This area of inquiry is of policy importance given that STEM research is crucial to the economic vitality of the United States and the fact that the federal government devotes considerable dollars to the STEM research enterprise.

What particularly distinguishes this session is that all four papers are making use of new and/or under-utilized data. In looking at peer effects, one study analyzes a dataset from a large, public minority-serving undergraduate institution, while another uses graduate transcript data from all public universities in Ohio. These studies focus on women and minorities. The third paper exploits data on a specific NIH fellowship award to investigate how award selection (whether by the program director or peer review) affects career outcomes, while the fourth paper uses underutilized restricted SESTAT data to investigate the retention of women in the biomedical research workforce.

The purpose of this session is to bring together researchers and nonacademics so that we can help advance policy to support and improve the STEM pipeline, retain talent in the STEM workforce, and enhance the quality of scientific research.