About Broadening Participation in Computing

The Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program at the National Science Foundation aims to significantly increase the number of U.S. citizens and permanent residents receiving post secondary degrees in the computing disciplines, with an emphasis on students from communities with longstanding underrepresentation in computing: women, persons with disabilities, and minorities. Included minorities are African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

The BPC program seeks to engage the computing community in developing and implementing innovative methods to improve recruitment and retention of these students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Because the lack of role models in the professoriate can be a barrier to participation, the BPC program also aims to develop effective strategies for encouraging individuals to pursue academic careers in computing and become these role models.

The BPC Community site serves as a focal point for the BPC community, providing a bulletin board of upcoming events, recent news, blog and access to a wide range of BPC and other computing diversity resources. It is hosted by the Engineering Pathway digital library with over 10,000 educational and diversity resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology, and engineering technology for use by K-12 and university educators and students.

There are three components to NSF's BPC program:

Alliances (BPC-A). Broad Alliances of institutions and organizations will design and carry out comprehensive programs that address underrepresentation in the computing disciplines. Alliances will join academic institutions of higher learning with secondary (and possibly middle) schools, government,industry, professional societies, and other not-for-profit organizations. In most cases, Alliances will involve multiple academic institutions of higher learning. Together, the participants will (1) develop and implement interventions that support students, (2) create sustainable changes in culture and practices at the institutional, departmental, and organizational levels, and (3) serve as models and repositories for effective practices to broaden participation. The emphasis will be on activities that have significant impact both in the quality of opportunities afforded to students and in the number of students potentially served. While the focus is on implementations, an Alliance may include complementary research that informs the design of its activities. The leveraging of existing efforts both across and within the underrpresented communities is strongly encouraged.
NSF-Funded BPC Alliances

Alliance Extensions (BPC-AE). Successful BPC Alliances can propose additional funding to significantly expand the impact of their work. The new funding can overlap with the final year of the Alliance project and can extend it for up to two years. Extensions must increase not just the duration of the Alliance award but also its scope, introducing additional targeted student groups, partners, and/ or projects.
NSF-Funded BPC Alliance Extensions

Demonstration Projects (BPC-DP). Demonstration Projects (DPs) are smaller in scope and narrower in focus than Alliance projects. Typically DPs will be pilots of innovative programs that, once fully developed, could be incorporated into the activities of an Alliance. Projects might, for example, be proposed by a single institution or might focus on a specific underrepresented community, a specific point in the academic pipeline, or on a specific impediment to full participation in computing. As in the case of Alliances, complementary, well-defined research aimed at informing the development of the project can be included.
NSF-Funded BPC Demonstration Programs

The BPC Community site is maintained by the following Associate Editors: