"Broader Impacts" is one of NSF's two core review criteria—and it is where strong science often loses to weaker competition. The reason is almost always the same: reviewers can tell the difference between aspirational language and evidence of real capability.
Generic statements about 'potential societal benefit' or 'plans to engage industry partners' do not move reviewers. What moves them is specificity: a named partner, a documented pathway, an existing initiative that your research can plug into. The Auster Center exists to give you exactly that.
The Auster Center's active initiatives—in Civic Innovation and Food & Nutrition—provide real, named homes for translation activities. A proposal that connects your research to an existing, funded initiative reads very differently to a reviewer than one that describes hypothetical future engagement.
Our Faculty Fellows are appointed researchers with active programs in their domains. Their participation in a proposal signals that the Broader Impacts work has an identified expert and institutional structure behind it—not just a good intention.
We have active relationships across sectors. Where relevant to your research, we can provide documented collaboration context, letters of support, or direct introductions to partners who can co-sign your translation pathway.
We help you articulate not just what impact you hope to have, but how your research will get there—through which pathway, at what readiness stage, and supported by what infrastructure. This specificity is what reviewers reward.
This is when we are most valuable. We help you identify which of the Center's initiatives and partnerships is the strongest fit for your research, develop a translation pathway that is realistic and reviewable, and build the Broader Impacts narrative from the ground up—not as an add-on, but as a structural argument woven through your proposal.
We review your Broader Impacts section for substance, specificity, and reviewer credibility. We strengthen commercialization narratives with realistic, documented pathways. We replace aspirational language with evidence-based claims. We connect your research outcomes to measurable societal benefits.
We follow through. If your proposal named Auster Center activities, we support you in delivering them—facilitating promised partnerships, connecting you to NSF TTP and SBIR/STTR opportunities for continued translation support, and helping you document outcomes for your next submission.