Broader Impact Plan Rubric

This BI Plan Rubric is designed to help you evaluate a specific Broader Impact (BI) plan.

The rubric can be used in several ways, including...

  • Reviewers participating in the review process, as individual or panel reviewers, can use the rubric to assess the rigor and quality of a proposed BI plan. Of course, reviewers should always review NSF’s Proposal Awards Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) for specific solicitation guidelines. Panelists should use this rubric in combination with their own experience and judgment when assessing proposals.
  • Grant writers can also use this rubric for guidance when writing a BI statement. We encourage grant writers to explore their own career goals and objectives, and carefully consider the research impacts they would like to achieve.

Looking for an example? Practice using the rubric with a case study in our BI Rubric Tutorial.

Cautionary Note: BI projects vary greatly based on the solicitation requirements, the needs of the partners and audiences engaged, and the resources of the proposing institution. This rubric is designed to provide general guidance about a BI project’s level of feasibility and completeness. It is not meant to devalue creativity and uniqueness, but rather to help promote understanding and rigor of the limitless possibilities available with BI project.

Let's get started...

To assess your Broader Impacts plan, we will step through five key questions on the following pages.

To start, you can give your rubric a quick title for reference later. This is optional.

A quick title for printing later

For each criteria shown on the next few pages, click on the box with the statement that best describes the plan you're reviewing.

Begin

If you would prefer to use a paper version of the BI Rubric, download our printable BI Rubric.

This rubric was developed with support by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. (OIA-1810732). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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