Nearly two years in, NSF program maximizes research impact at Montana State University

The crux of many research projects lies in a deceptively complex question: “So what?”

Seifert’s STRP has continued longtime work developing a digital platform through which middle and high school students explore the higher education experience. While the platform has been more than a decade in the making, ART funding supported the production of the digital product now used in more than a dozen Montana schools to help students prepare for and learn about their college futures.

At Montana State University, a unique program funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation is helping scientists to not only answer that question but put it into action. The NSF Accelerating Research Translation, or NSF ART, program, provides support and funding to create a bridge between university researchers and the people who can use and benefit from their work.

NSF ART began at MSU in 2024 with a $6 million investment from the NSF to expand the research translation support infrastructure of the Technology Transfer Office and to support seed translational research projects, or STRPs, with funding and mentorship to directly advance promising research toward public benefit. One of MSU’s STRPs has been led by Tricia Seifert, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Development, whose research focuses on learning and development in adolescent students.