What We Offer

ORAU STEM Accelerator partners and clients can work with us broadly to access a diverse network.

Our goal is to drive research and development, advocate for innovative training and education solutions, shape policy, and deliver tangible outcomes to strengthen the United States STEM workforce.

Gain access to a network of diverse public and private partnerships to address the toughest STEM challenges facing K-12, technical, community colleges, and four-year institutions, including education and training for STEM capacity-building.

Access resources and expertise

Leverage our resources, assessments, and market analyses to advocate for and generate effective STEM in the following areas:

Workforce strategy and capacity building
Education and training programs
Pipeline, recruitment, placement, and retention best practices
Improve your DEIA practices

Our experts work in sectors, like nuclear science and technology and other areas where STEM gaps exist.

A group of diverse people talk in a large meeting area

Catalyze innovation through collaboration

Work with ORAU’s STEM Accelerator to bring together public-private organizations to host design-thinking workshops to solve challenges in the STEM ecosystem. Using human-centered design practices, our team helps partners think creatively, build clarity and consensus, and ask the right questions at the right time. We leverage tools to spark insightful conversations, capture meaningful results, and guide creative problem solving.

Three people talk in a large meeting area

Collaborate on funded research opportunities

Engage with academic and research institutions, government agencies, and commercial organizations in cutting-edge research that addresses critical challenges in STEM education and training at the federal, state, regional, and local levels.

Qingguo Xu, DPhil, a 2018 winner of the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award

Create and launch solutions

Create and launch innovative new approaches in STEM education and training solutions that are scalable. We identify research and development proposals across sectors and bring together the power of our 150+ member university consortium and 30+ minority serving institutions around these scalable solutions. We also assemble effective teams around sector or industry specific needs to undertake scientific research that results in new approaches.

A woman conducts research in a laboratory setting

Define, inform, and transform

Provide thought leadership to inform local, state, regional, and federal agencies on innovative approaches to improve STEM learning and accelerate our workforce. Together with our partners, we want to define the future of education, learning, and workforce capacity-building in STEM.

A female student conducts research in a lab setting

Partnerships

In our quest to achieve our goals, we actively engage in collaborative partnerships with a diverse range of organizations, each offering unique perspectives. This synergy ensures that we operate harmoniously, breaking down silos and fostering a shared commitment to our mission. Together, we strive to create impactful STEM awareness programs, nurture talent pipelines, and accelerate the growth of our collective talent pool, enriching the future of our shared endeavors.

We work across government organizations from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce to state and local governments to enable innovation and economic growth. We are working to support government agencies in order to:

Build sector and domain public-private partnerships to address STEM workforce shortages
Develop workforce strategies, implementation plans, and capacity building

We are working together with a nationwide group of industry, academia, professional organizations and government that share a common mission to:

Build workforce strategy and implementation plans
Assist with pipeline, recruitment, placement, and retention
Engage with partners to foster innovation through collaborative research initiatives
Earn a high return on investment when research is jointly funded
Mentor and train students to attain desired skills for work in various industries
Define the future of work by building curricula for industry standards

Alongside a diverse network of public and private partners, we are addressing the toughest STEM challenges facing K-12, technical, community colleges, and four-year institutions, including education and training. Our priorities are to:

Build new, sustainable funding paths with local, state, and federal opportunities and commercial support
Collaborate with other organizations on STEM research and development opportunities
Advance STEM programs and pathways with innovative and cutting-edge solutions
Raise awareness, educate, train, and create pathways for students in highly relevant STEM research areas
Create diverse perspectives and ecosystems by mobilizing a diverse network of public-private partners
Connect with local, regional, and national STEM education, training, and workforce initiatives
Partner with industry to learn about their needs, help shape curriculum, and find new funding streams

We are bringing together the resources to build strategic collaborations between public-private partners that result in the development of improved STEM education, training, and learning ecosystems. Partners are encouraged to:

Participate in a national ecosystem of public-private partners in sector-specific areas
Access university and industry resources and expertise
Collaborate on funded research projects that develop, scale-up, and commercialize key enabling technologies
Stay informed about latest trends, innovations, and advancements through workshops, seminars, and our Annual Meeting

Our partners

ORAU STEM Accelerator is joined by a consortium of national partners focused on advancing STEM education, training, and workforce pathways.

AAAS-STEM Opportunity Alliance

We are building a strategy for the STEM ecosystem rooted in equity, inclusion, and scientific excellence to power progress, innovation, and prosperity for all by 2050.

American Nuclear Society (ANS)

ANS will host an international conference on Nuclear Education and Training in 2025 and we are supporting this effort as a committee chair leading a new awards program for students, educators, innovators, and industry.

East Tennessee Economic Council (ETEC)

Our role is to support the Nuclear Workforce summit in 2024.

Global Action Platform

We are collaborating on regional innovation ecosystems to build public-private partnerships among academia, industry, and state/local agencies to advance scalable, sustainable STEM solutions and grow economic markets in regions throughout the United States.

Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)

We are bringing together public-private partners to create a national nuclear power workforce strategy and implementation plan for the United States. Our role is to bring together our ORAU member universities, community colleges, and technical schools to form a committee on education and training. Topics that our committee will explore include how to grow the STEM workforce pipeline and how to attract, train, and retain highly skilled and diverse workers.

Thurgood Marshall College Fund

We are helping build the Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) R&D ecosystem, capacity-building, and infrastructure to ensure these academic institutions are successful in advancing their capacity to receive federal, state, and local funding. This includes helping to build models for HBCU students to develop STEM career pathways into federal agencies.

Contact us

For more information about ORAU STEM Accelerator, contact Liv Blackmon at olivia.blackmon@orau.org.