From Data to Actions: NASA Science Mission Directorate’s efforts to create a more diverse and inclusive research program.

NASA is deeply committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, equitable, and accessible environment for scientists. To this end, the Science Mission Directorate in collaboration with the Office of the NASA Chief Scientist has been analyzing the demographics of its proposers and implementing new approaches to award solicitation and evaluation. This presentation will include a discussion of the demographic characteristics of proposers to the Heliophysics Division’s grant and mission solicitations between 2014 and 2020 as well as describing the efforts underway to develop an appropriate comparison group. Preliminary comparisons to this group, constructed using the public use data file for the NSF National Survey of College Graduates for 2019, will be presented. Finally, approaches for reducing bias in evaluations — including the use of Dual-Anonymous Peer Review and elimination of fixed proposal due dates — will be described.