College of Charleston among South Carolina schools awarded $10M NSF grant

The National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NSF EPSCoR) earlier this month awarded $10 million to launch the South Carolina Collaborative Academic Pathways in STEM (SC-CAPS), a statewide initiative to build research capacity and STEM workforce pathways across South Carolina’s Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

The funding will launch a statewide initiative to build research capacity and STEM workforce pathways.

“This award represents an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen STEM education across South Carolina while creating clearer pathways for student success, says Christopher Korey, associate provost for student success and biology professor at the College of Charleston who is also a co-principal investigator on the project.

SC-CAPS launches with three interconnected cores:

•  Experiential Learning Core — Engages high school, transfer, and undergraduate students across all 11 campuses to build research skills, expand institutional research capacity, and broaden participation in STEM.
• Building STEM Pathways Core — Focuses on retention, on-time graduation, and career readiness through evidence-based strategies including articulation agreements, high school bridge programs, enhanced advising, and peer mentoring.
• Faculty and Institutional Growth Core — Supports faculty development through institutional commitments and programmatic initiatives designed to strengthen research competitiveness and secure long-term sustainability.

Beyond the three cores, SC-CAPS opens additional capacity-building opportunities to all PUIs and HBCUs in South Carolina, including competitive seed funding for equipment, a proposal-writing academy built around multi-institutional faculty collaboration, statewide best-practice workshops, and research experiences for students.

The grant is awarded to SCRA and will be led by Dr. Nadim Aziz, South Carolina EPSCoR Director, who serves as Principal Investigator and Project Director. SC-CAPS connects a network of 11 academic institutions: Anderson University, Coastal Carolina University, Coker University, College of Charleston, Furman University, Lander University, Presbyterian College, South Carolina State University, University of South Carolina Upstate, Voorhees University, and Winthrop University.

About South Carolina EPSCoR 

The South Carolina Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (SC EPSCoR) works to strengthen the state’s research infrastructure and STEM competitiveness by building partnerships among South Carolina’s colleges, universities, government, and industry. Administered through SCRA and the State EPSCoR Committee, SC EPSCoR helps the state’s institutions compete for federal research funding and translates that research into economic and workforce development across South Carolina. 
 
About SCRA 

Chartered in 1983 by the State of South Carolina as a public, nonprofit corporation, South Carolina Research Authority fuels the state’s innovation economy through the impact of its comprehensive services to technology-based startups, academia, and industry. SCRA provides funding and support to accelerate the growth of academic startups; high-quality lab and administrative workspaces; facilitation and funding for partnerships between and among industry, startups, and academic institutions; assistance and funding for the relocation of technology-based companies to South Carolina; and coaching and funding for startups that may also receive investments from its affiliate, SC Launch Inc.