Serving our State - ND Facts

North Dakota (ND) EPSCoR serves the state through in-house programming, partnerships with other ND entities, financial investment in institutions of higher education to build STEM capacity and competitiveness, communicating science to the public, connecting researchers and educators around the state, and obtaining additional external funding for STEM research, education, and outreach activities.

Each year, ND EPSCoR invests in institutions of higher education throughout the state as a means of enhancing statewide STEM capacity and competitiveness. (NDTCS – North Dakota tribal college system.)


The ND EPSCoR State Office funds faculty and students for STEM research and education activities, and supports the STEM pathway at 11 higher education institutions within the North Dakota University System (NDUS) and the North Dakota Association of Tribal Colleges (NDATC), including:

                                                                      

Primarily undergraduate institutions:

Master's college/university:

Tribal colleges/universities:

Two research universities:

Dickinson State UniversityMinot State UniversityCankdeska Cikana Community CollegeNorth Dakota State University
Mayville State UniversityNueta Hidatsa Sahnish CollegeUniversity of North Dakota
Valley City State UniversitySitting Bull College
Turtle Mountain Community College
United Tribes Technical College

 



During 2019-2021, ND EPSCoR has invested more than $3M to fund equipment, preliminary seed awards, student travel, equipment repair, K12 outreach, virtual modules, community-based research, undergraduate research, and external proposal review.

Our in-house programming currently focuses in four areas: STEM-At-Home, STEM Education Portal with K12 lesson plans, Students in Technology Transfer and Research, and Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education. The goal of these programs is to develop and make publicly available informal and formal K12 STEM activities/lesson plans for the broader STEM community and to implement outreach engagement activities that expose and engage American Indian students in STEM activities.

North Dakota has numerous entities that provide wonderful services within the STEM ecosphere. ND EPSCoR has partnered (though sponsorship) with North Dakota's Gateway to Science and Emerging Digital Academy to expand the reach of programming implemented by these entities.       

ND EPSCoR is dedicated to being a learning organization that provides a positive benefit to the citizens of the state. Thus, we partner with other entities to develop research, education, and outreach proposals for external funding. Our CIRCLES Alliance is a collaboration between six EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) jurisdictions [Idaho (ID), Montana (MT - prime institution), New Mexico (NM), North Dakota (ND), South Dakota (SD), and Wyoming (WY)] to address the underrepresentation of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in the STEM disciplines and within the STEM workforce of those states.

An important role of ND EPSCoR is to communicate to citizens of North Dakota the impact of its STEM investments. We accomplish this through videos, a monthly newsletter, and our social media platforms.

Finally, ND EPSCoR administers and manages the NSF EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-1 cooperative agreement: New Discoveries in the Advanced interface of Computation, Engineering, and Science.