Summary

Engineering continually reshapes society, influencing almost every aspect of our daily lives. It is the innovative force behind such marvels as the internet, bionic limbs, three-dimensional (3D) printing, clean-energy technologies such as wind turbines, and earthquake-resistant buildings. Engineering advances economic growth, enhances manufacturing capacity, enhances infrastructure resilience, improves healthcare, and strengthens national security.

However, the impact of engineering research—and, by extension, engineering education—is often hidden from the public eye. Promoting comprehension of how engineering affects society is thus a crucial aspect of garnering and sustaining public backing of policies aimed at ensuring that technology continues to serve the greater good of humanity.

One part of this effort is highlighting the pivotal role of federal support of engineering research. Such support furnishes researchers with the necessary resources to pursue ambitious projects, fostering exploration into fundamental questions, groundbreaking technology and engineered systems developments, and practical applications. Free of the need to generate profits, government agencies can prioritize research that yields societal benefits, stimulating innovation, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, and cultivating a skilled workforce.

Since its inception in 1950, the National Science Foundation (NSF)—an independent federal agency—has played a critical role in funding cutting-edge research, including in engineering. In keeping with this responsibility, it charged the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) to explore how its support of engineering research and education has led to positive societal impacts, focusing on the stories of the people responsible for these impacts. As part of this effort, the committee formed to undertake this work was asked to develop clear, compelling narratives for the public about the sources and effects of engineering innovations and offer recommendations on how to bring this information to the attention of diverse audiences.

STRUCTURE AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE REPORT

Chapter 1 of the report elaborates on the motivations for the study. It presents the statement of task for the committee convened to carry out the work and the insights on fulfilling the task gained from the sponsor, explains the committee’s approach to fulfilling the task, discusses where this report fits within the scholarship addressing the impacts of engineering research support, and explains how the committee defined “engineering” and “impact” in the context of its work. The history of NSF’s funding of engineering research is explored in Chapter 2, including the units involved in supporting engineering over time and the mechanisms the agency has for providing support. Chapter 3 outlines the many ways in which engineering research and education affect society, the role that the NSF has played in bringing these impacts about, and the means that it employs to evaluate societal impacts. The committee’s process for identifying exemplary engineering impacts made possible by NSF investments is presented in

Chapter 4, along with descriptions of those impacts. The final chapter of the report, Chapter 5, addresses the means for communicating engineering’s societal impacts and the audiences for that messaging. It summarizes the example outreach materials developed under the committee’s supervision and provides guidance on how to reach and engage diverse audiences with information on engineering’s impact on society.

Report appendices contain the agenda for the committee’s information-gathering symposium, thorough descriptions of the example outreach materials, and biographies of the committee and staff responsible for the work.

REPORT SYNOPSIS

This report is intended to draw attention to engineering’s impacts on society, highlighting the stories of people who have benefited from NSF research and education support and who have brought about technological innovations and new types of engineered systems as a result of it. As its statement of task notes, such impacts might take the form of expanded technological and social capabilities, scientific breakthroughs, and improvements in economic opportunity. They could have led to improvements in individual quality of life, national security, population health, manufacturing services, infrastructure resilience, and public policy, among others.

The emphasis on stories and people distinguishes this effort from many other reports produced by the National Academies, which take a more analytical approach to evaluating a particular topic. These include reports that quantify the impact of federally funded research support; examine the conduct and result of various NSF program initiatives; offer advice on communicating information on science, technology, and the value of supporting research to the general public; and raise public awareness of engineering and the role of engineers. Unlike nearly all of these publications, this report was designed for a wide readership.

The content of the report is summarized below.

NSF’s Support of Engineering-Related Research and Education

NSF has funded research on engineering and the education of engineers since its founding. These activities were initially undertaken by the Division of Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, which focused on fundamental research questions relevant to multiple disciplines rather than awards in single fields. Funding expanded in the late 1950s when scientific achievements in the Soviet Union spurred policies aimed at accelerating U.S. technological capacity, and in 1964, NSF created a separate Division of Engineering with a specific mandate to support engineering research and education. This division increased the funding of graduate students and early career faculty as well as continuing previous initiatives fostering interdisciplinary collaborations.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the agency instituted the Interdisciplinary Research Relevant to the Problems of our Society program. Significantly, this program required that proposals explicitly discuss potential societal impacts. The effort was later absorbed into the Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) program, which addressed several issues with substantial social components, including alternative energy sources and pollution detection.

The Directorate for Engineering was established in 1981. Its mission was to strengthen the technology programs of the agency while maintaining close connections between engineering research and education and related activities in the sciences. The broad institutional structure

established at its founding remains largely intact today. As of early 2024, the directorate—now one of eight within the agency—has five major units (NSF, 2024b):

1. Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems
2. Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation
3. Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems
4. Division of Engineering Education and Centers
5. Office of Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities

Many other parts of NSF support engineering research and education, both directly and indirectly, as well. Three have a particularly strong focus on the discipline. The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, established as an independent administrative unit in 1986, has the mission “to enable the U.S. to uphold its leadership in computing, communications, and information science and engineering” (NSF, 2024a). That same year, the Directorate for Science and Engineering Education—now called the Directorate for STEM Education—was established. Its outreach extends to all educational levels and settings, with a particular focus on broadening the participation of groups that have been underrepresented in engineering. And in 2022 the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships came into existence with the goal of collaborating with the other directorates to accelerate the translation of research results to the marketplace and society while cultivating new educational pathways that lead to a diverse and skilled future technical workforce.

NSF has used a wide variety of mechanisms to support such work. The most prominent and visible of these are the Engineering Research Centers (ERCs). The concept of centers was introduced in 1984 as a means to conduct multidisciplinary, systems-oriented engineering research on problems critical to industry and has since been widely adopted elsewhere in government. ERCs have evolved since their inception from a focus on interdisciplinary research at a single host university with industry engagement, through expansions involving multiple partner universities, strategic planning, diversity initiatives, and outreach to pre-college educational institutions as well as inclusive partnerships emphasizing convergent research and workforce development. As of early 2024, NSF had supported 79 ERCs, with more slated for later in the year. It was estimated in 2022 that the centers had collectively yielded over $75 billion in new products and processes on an investment of less than $2 billion (NSF, 2022a; p. 3).

Among many other support mechanisms are Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRCs), where academic researchers connect with industry partners to create and sustain collaborations that bridge the gap between the two; the Innovation Corps (I-Corps), a program that facilitates faculty and students in taking the initial steps in commercializing their discoveries with the help of industry mentors, and the NSF Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR), where small businesses undertake translational research to develop prototypes and scale up production. The agency has also long recognized the importance of developing early career faculty via such initiatives as the Presidential Young Investigator Award, CAREER Award, and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineering programs.

In these ways, NSF’s engineering programs have had a widespread influence on society through their support of work that brings about new technologies and economic advancement through public–private collaborations and the development of a well-educated workforce.

Considerations in Identifying Engineering Impacts on Society

The committee examined the many ways in which engineering research and education impact society along with NSF’s role in bringing these impacts about as part of developing their approach to identifying exemplary engineering impacts made possible by NSF investments. Fundamentally, it is clear that engineering has profoundly shaped society over time through innovations like electrification, the automobile, and fiber optics, and it will have a major role in providing solutions to future challenges such as economical solar energy, universal access to clean water, and enhanced virtual reality. A set of National Academy of Engineering (NAE) reports identified areas of societal import where engineering has or will drive change, with The Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century (Constable and Somerville, 2003) addressing the former and the “Grand Challenges for Engineering” (NAE, 2017) the latter.

Research underpins the important engineering breakthroughs mentioned in these reports, and research requires sources of support. While commercial interests fund and conduct most research and development work in the United States, the federal government still plays an important role. NSF is among the major sources of federal dollars, and it has been particularly influential in lending support to technologies such as the internet in the period between their initial development and the time at which they become commercially viable. Furthermore, NSF programs like the Engineering Research Centers foster interdisciplinary research and academic–industry partnerships that might not otherwise have come to pass. The agency’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers, Small Business Innovation Research program, and the National Nanotechnology Initiative are just three examples of the means by which impacts are being generated.

NSF’s research support programs do not operate in isolation, however. Indeed, complementary federal agency support has been instrumental in driving engineering innovation in the United States. This complementary support may take different forms. In some circumstances, differences in mission drive when a particular agency is likely to be the primary support mechanism. The three federal advanced research project agencies, for example, are tasked with funding cutting-edge, high-risk research efforts that may, if they show promise, be fostered through their next stage of development by other agencies like NSF. In other cases, particular agencies maintain infrastructure like laboratories and testing facilities that other entities can utilize, saving costs and allowing better utilization of specialized operations and support staff. And research in areas that overlap agency responsibilities may be supported by multiple agencies, each contributing to and deriving value from the piece of that work that is consonant with their mission. Overall, the complementary support from federal agencies has been a cornerstone of engineering innovation in the U.S., enabling groundbreaking research, fostering cross-sector collaborations, and providing essential resources that promote continuous advancement in engineering.

NSF is unique, though, among federal funding sources in requiring program and project proposals to delineate their “broader impacts” on society. This core component is defined as the potential of the research to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific desired societal outcomes (NSF, 2019). Since its introduction in 1997, the broader impacts criterion has addressed an array of topics from workforce development, national security, and economic competitiveness to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and diversity equity, and inclusion.

Scholars have analyzed how broader impacts are categorized, with teaching and training being commonly cited in applications, along with dissemination, infrastructure enhancement, and

public scientific literacy and engagement. Cultural and political factors influence broader impact considerations, suggesting a need for improved understanding and communication of societal benefits. While NSF’s efforts to create institutional capacity around the criterion have progressed, the literature suggests that gaps remain, requiring a better assessment of whom benefits from broader impacts and the establishment of evaluation metrics.

Recognizing Engineering Impacts on Society Brought About by NSF Investments

NSF has itself undertaken three efforts over recent years to identify and document the effects of its support for research and education on the economy, human well-being, and societal advancement.

Developed for the 50th anniversary of NSF in 2000, the Nifty 50 (NSF, 2000) lists innovations and discoveries catalyzed by agency funding that have become commonplace in daily life. Nearly half of the list, which covers the breadth of the NSF’s support initiatives, cite inventions, technologies, or programs related to engineering, including bar codes, Doppler radar, fiber optics, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and volcanic eruption detection. Ten years later, the Sensational 60 (NSF, 2010) list added such engineering advances as biofuels and clean energy, deep sea drilling, and supercomputer facilities. The 70th anniversary contribution was a mural called the “History Wall” (NSF, 2022b), which depicted still more innovations like carbon nanotubes and search-and-rescue robots. These efforts highlighted the substantial return on investment of government support for science, engineering, and technology, and they served as resources to inform the committee’s considerations of engineering impacts on society.

The committee undertook two outreach efforts intended to expand upon this information, their own knowledge of engineering innovations brought about by NSF investments, and the background research conducted by staff. One of these was an information-gathering symposium carried out in fulfillment of the statement of task. The other was a set of questionnaires circulated to members of the NAE, along with a companion solicitation of input from NSF staff.

The symposium, which took place in August 2022, touched on major themes raised in the statement of task. It addressed NSF’s role in fostering engineering innovations and the people, programs, and funding processes responsible for those innovations. The objectives of the symposium were three-fold: to highlight the rich interconnections between science and engineering and the many ways in which each informs the other, to emphasize the deep and productive link between research and education, and to demonstrate that an underappreciation or misunderstanding of engineering is partially responsible for hindering both technological progress and the participation of underrepresented groups that could contribute to engineering advancements as well as gain benefits from their participation. Extraordinary Engineering Impacts on Society: Proceedings of a Symposium (NASEM, 2023) documents the event in detail.

The committee also circulated two questionnaires to members of the NAE. These distinguished educators, researchers, and public and private sector leaders were invited to respond to a set of questions including “Do you have knowledge of any significant engineering impacts on society resulting from funding provided by the National Science Foundation?” Input was solicited from NSF staff on the same question. Their responses spanned the disciplines of aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, industrial, manufacturing, and mechanical engineering along with computer science, operational systems, and education and workforce development, illustrating the broad reach of the agency. Computer science and engineering garnered the greatest number of responses, with NSF’s support of the people and research underlying the technologies that led to Google receiving multiple mentions.

The committee’s decision-making process for identifying engineering impacts made possible by NSF investments was guided by this body of information. Primary among their own considerations was that they would not single out a “top 10” but would instead highlight exemplary impacts showcasing the breadth and magnitude of NSF’s influence, including a variety of engineering disciplines, forms of impact, types of support provided, and recipients. In keeping with the statement of task directive to “engage young people from all segments of society,” it featured stories intended to engage and inspire diverse audiences and placed special emphasis on highlighting the work of researchers from historically underrepresented groups in engineering. Recognizing that these impacts are rarely the work of one agency alone, credit is given to other agencies and funders who also contributed to the achievements.

The 10 exemplary engineering impacts on society brought about by NSF investments that were identified by the committee run the gamut from specific technologies to areas of research to programs that provide support. They are briefly summarized below.

1. Additive manufacturing, notably 3D printing, has transformed traditional manufacturing with improved material use, design adaptability, and faster production.
2. Artificial intelligence models are demonstrating an expanding repertoire of abilities, including text manipulation, pattern recognition, image recognition, self-navigating vehicles, and increasingly accurate speech recognition.
3. Biomedical engineering has significantly contributed to society by developing technologies that improve healthcare outcomes and, in the field of rehabilitation engineering, the daily lives of people with disabilities.
4. Cybersecurity research leads to technologies, tools, and training that protect against online threats to individual privacy, essential services, and national security.
5. NSF has long been a major player in engineering education and early career development through their work with researchers, faculty, and institutions, addressing systemic and structural barriers and promoting equitable opportunities, thereby shaping a more diverse and productive STEM workforce.
6. Many advances in fields as diverse as construction, drug delivery, computing, telecommunications, and transportation are due to research in materials science and engineering.
7. The Engineering Research Centers (ERC) program has led to groundbreaking research and educational initiatives and demonstrated new types of engineered systems in multiple cross-disciplinary fields that address national challenges, foster innovation, and yield significant gains for the U.S. economy.
8. NSF contributions to internet advancements such as NSFNET, TCP/IP and DSL and the agency’s early support of such trailblazing researchers as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have changed the world.
9. Semiconductors and integrated circuits—the “brains” behind the electronic devices that we rely on for nearly every aspect of our lives—are possible because of tools like the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation Service (MOSIS) and technologies like fin field-effect transistors (FinFET).
10. Pioneering work in wind energy technology includes the design of a vertical-axis wind farm inspired by the formations of schooling fish, which has the goal of significantly enhancing wind farm power density.

Communicating Engineering Impacts on Society to Diverse Audiences

As already noted, any effort to convey the impacts that engineering has had on society encounters an immediate problem: most Americans, including most students and their teachers, have very little exposure to what engineers do or how their work affects everyday life. Increasing support for engineering research and education can yield several positive outcomes, such as enhanced funding for innovative projects, an influx of skilled individuals into the field to meet workforce demand, and informed decisions in the marketplace, leading to high-quality goods and services. In a world facing complex problems that demand creative and technologically sophisticated responses, engineering must be at the forefront of developing solutions.

Research on communicating the impacts of engineering is relatively scarce, but the work that has been done provided the committee with insights. Studies conducted by the NAE in the early 2000s developed and tested messages that were successful in conveying positive perceptions of the discipline to diverse audiences of students and adults. Later research drawing on principles derived from the field of advertising examined the application of concepts like branding and framing to the issue. Storytelling was found to be a particularly effective means of communicating about engineering, as people tend to respond to narratives more strongly than they respond to facts, and narratives are easier to comprehend than traditional scientific explanations.

Studies indicate that messages about engineering, to be successful, must also be tailored to appeal to specific audiences. Hands-on activities are well suited to K–12 students, for example, and they can stimulate interest in engineering’s practical problem-solving mindset as well as encouraging relevant skills such as systems thinking, creativity, and collaboration. Women, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, people with disabilities, and members of other minority groups remain significantly underrepresented in engineering in the United States. Given that research shows that messages are more effective when they are delivered by people who belong to the same underrepresented group as an audience, it is important to develop messages and encourage communicators who can appeal to these groups.

As the U.S. population becomes increasingly diverse, engineering needs to account for the values and concerns of all people. This objective can be achieved most effectively by having an engineering workforce that reflects that diversity, which means reaching the members of underrepresented groups with the messages, information, and assistance they need to help them join the field.

Previous work has tackled the issue of communicating across purposes and audiences using different labels and mechanisms, including framing, branding, narrative, and storytelling. These share the central idea of curating and presenting information in ways that makes connections to specific audiences, belief systems, mental models, and the like. This report focuses on narratives and related constructs, while acknowledging the complexities of these overlapping areas of scholarship and practice.

The statement of task directed the committee to “[p]rovide guidance on how to reach and engage diverse audiences . . .; promote better understanding of the vital role of engineering in government, business, and society; and engage young people from all segments of society to encourage pursuing a career in engineering.” To fulfill this task, the committee contracted with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a set of example materials for NSF to consider in outreach efforts. Five examples were developed, aimed at different segments of the general public, with an emphasis on students and on diverse groups that may otherwise be poorly informed about engineering and

engineers. They use a variety of media (short videos, interactive graphics, workbooks, etc.) and take different approaches (inspirational, educational, humorous, and so on) to engage their audiences. Their content is summarized in Table S-1.

TABLE S-1 Summary of Example Engineering Impacts Outreach Materials Intended for Diverse, General Population Audiences

REPORT CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

As the committee’s research and the narratives it developed to support its list of exemplary engineering impacts make clear, NSF funding of engineering research and education has had profound societal effects. Based on this and the additional information presented, the committee came to these conclusions:

• NSF’s investments in engineering education and research have played a catalytic role in advancing the science, technology, and engineering ecosystems.
• NSF’s support of interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration on research initiatives and of centers has contributed to engineering’s positive impacts on society.
• NSF investments in women and in others underrepresented in the engineering field and in fostering a more supportive learning and research environment for these groups have had a part in bringing about significant engineering contributions.

Additionally, the statement of task requested “conclusions and recommendations on how to best promote understanding of engineering’s place in society and how NSF contributes to it.” The committee’s review of the literature addressing the communication of scientific and technical information to the public leads it to conclude that:

• There is an opportunity to change the way that engineers and engineering are perceived by the general public by highlighting the many ways that engineering affects everyday life, the contributions that engineers make to improving those lives, and the role that investments in engineering education and research play in making these contributions possible.
• Outreach efforts that are grounded in the research on engagement and communication are more likely to reach target audiences and have the impact they intend. Research indicates that efforts that use or highlight people with whom or content with which target audiences can relate are more effective.

These materials also form the basis for the following recommendations regarding the communication of engineering impacts on society:

NSF, in their outreach efforts regarding the support of engineering education and research, should

• draw upon the literature and experts on public engagement and communication to better target their messaging.
• increase the participation and diversity of organizations, people, and voices who have not been well represented in the engineering profession in their messaging.
• employ communication forms (short-form videos and media that can be consumed on phones, for example) and forums (including social media platforms) that are used by their target audiences.
• feature diverse and relatable people and stories that illustrate how engineering is making everyday life better and how engineers improve the lives of others.
• incorporate tracking of the effectiveness of specific messaging efforts into outreach efforts.

REFERENCES