The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Making and Innovation Initiative

Today's innovation economy requires the ability to apply entrepreneurial thinking and an invention mindset to address societal challenges that impact us locally, nationally, and globally. We must be intentional about ensuring the innovation ecosystem is inclusive and represents ALL of America’s talent and promise. The higher education landscape can serve as a powerful catalyst for building that inclusive innovation ecosystem, an urgent need since the faces behind innovation remain predominantly white and male.  While Black Americans have documented contributions to American innovation and invention (Andrews and Rothwell, 2023), bias, funding inequities, and systemic barriers continue to hinder their full participation in the innovation arena and they represent only ~0.4% of US inventions (Nager et al., 2016). Specific challenges that HBCUs and Black innovators face include inadequate access to capital, inequities in funding – specifically, disparities in research and innovation grant proposal acceptance, and access to innovation resources, training, mentoring, and pd (Cook, 2019, 2020; Duffins and Childs, 2020; Hewlett et al., 2020; Nager et al., 2016). These obstacles and barriers not only impede institutional capacity at HBCUs, but they also prevent the US from realizing its full potential. For the US to retain its competitiveness, it must engage ALL its human capital to solve critical national and global issues.  In addition to an inequitable distribution of research and innovation resources and access to capacity-enabling opportunities, there is a dearth of research on best practices for inclusive innovation - specifically on advancing capacity at HBCUs.   

To that end, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) through funding supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) were awarded a three-year grant, “Strengthening an Inclusive Innovation Ecosystem through an HBCU Community of Practice.” This project is funded and supported by the NSF HBCU-UP Program via Grant No. HRD-2332409.

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