Partner for broadening participation

The University of Texas at Austin is committed to fostering research-driven partnerships with universities across the Southwest to enhance capacity, strengthen collaboration, and increase competitiveness for external research funding. This initiative aims to establish new strategic connections, leverage existing partnerships, and create greater opportunities for researchers at UT Austin and institutions across the region to pursue funding together. We welcome participation from researchers at universities throughout the Southwest, including (but not limited to) Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

At Texas Immersive Institute, The mission is to create responsible, responsive, and remarkable solutions through the power of immersive storytelling. We empower artists, scientists, and humanists with access to cutting-edge technology and research to design experiences that address significant challenges.

The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Dell Medical School supports the people, programs, and opportunities that accelerate the translation of medical innovation to health care at scale. The office develops key programmatic initiatives and innovative entrepreneurial training within Dell Med and collaboratively across the University and Central Texas. The office also serves as an integral part of Health Starts Here, the strategic plan for The University of Texas Medical Center, anchored by Dell Med. The office empowers opportunities across research, education and clinical care to accelerate transformative innovation and entrepreneuership. Areas of focus include: 1. Catalyzing Health Innovations Through Strategic Programs, 2. Developing Innovative Training Opportunities for Talent Empowerment, 3. the NEXXUS Program, and 4. the Texas Health Catalyst Associate Program.

The community engagement team in the Undergraduate College stewards sustainable relationships with local, regional, and statewide communities and organizations toward the goal of supporting mutual benefit for communities and the people of The University.

The Center hosts a variety of education and outreach initiatives that can be leveraged in research proposals, e.g., the K-5 Research Experiences for Teachers program, Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, First Year Undergraduate Research Program: FUSE, Industrial Mentorship program for Graduate Students, Artist in Residence program, afterschool STEM clubs at local schools, and K-12 STEM outreach to the Texas School for the Deaf and Texas School for the Blind.

The Education and Outreach Directorate at the Texas Advanced Computing Center provides K-20 programming to address 21st-century workforce development needs. This includes STEM summer camps for middle school and high school students, research experiences for undergraduate students and educators, fellowships, internships, and public outreach.

Cumbre Kids produce children's STEM podcasts that reach 130,000 Spanish-speaking families. Their programs feature researchers answering questions submitted by children 3-10 years old. Cumbre Kids has worked with the McDonald Observatory at UT Austin, as well as dozens of universities, federal agencies, museums, and more.

The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) connect PIs with undergraduate research assistants through our student advising and our online database of faculty research interests and projects (https://eureka.utexas.edu). OUR hosts Summer Research Scholars programming to support the professional development of undergraduate researchers taking part in summer research programs (e.g., NSF REUs), and offers a variety of student research funding opportunities and research presentation events to further the work and development of student researchers.

The Lab for Immersive Media (LIM) is a high tech interactive and immersive media laboratory that enables novel research and entertainment experiences in virtual and physical space. A key goal of the LIM is to broaden research impact through partnerships, public engagement, and unique collaborations between art and science.

Connecting Research and Education At TExas (CREATE) was founded in 2017 through a partnership established between Dr. Sean T. Roberts at The University of Texas at Austin (UT) and Dr. Shawn M. Amorde at Austin Community College (ACC) with support from the National Science Foundation. CREATE’s initial goal was to improve community college student retention in the physical sciences by fostering mentorship relationships between ACC students and UT faculty through research projects tied to green energy. Over time, CREATE’s managing team has been broadened to include Dr. Emily Que (UT), Dr. Samantha Soebbing (ACC), Dr. Purna Murthy (ACC), and Dr. Huilang (Evan) Wang (UT) which has allowed its scope to expand into a range of areas in chemistry, molecular biosciences, physics, materials science, and engineering.