They'll not solve any problems mind you. They'll just innovate the translation of qualitative evidence into quantitative performance measures.

From Scholars to study why $365M DEI investment into STEM failed to diversify engineering by Daniel Nuccio.  The subheading is Despite 20 years of investment, women make up only 20 percent of engineering students and tenure-track faculty.  Another example of government wasting real money attempting to solve a non-problem.  In this instance, spending $365 million dollars over twenty years to get more women and minorities involved in the sciences.  Unless there is evidence of discrimination by universities against women and minorities by universities, then there is no problem to be solved.

If there were discrimination against women and minorities, that is already against the law and prosecutions would end any such practice.  It is clear that there is no systemic discrimination.  Indeed, most the lawsuits are of a reverse nature.  Universities being sued because they are illegally discriminating against whites or men.  If there is no discrimination, then why is the government wasting so much money to no positive end?

The article is suggestive why.

The National Science Foundation has tapped a set of scholars to study one of its programs that funneled $365 million into diversifying STEM, but appears to have had little effect in the field of engineering.

[snip]

As the leader of the Diversity Assessment Research in Engineering to Catalyze the Advancement of Respect and Equity, or DAREtoCARE lab, at the University at Buffalo, Sánchez-Peña strives to “progress engineering as a more diverse field through rigorous research on the advancement of women and other minorities at all levels of engineering.”

[snip]

At the time of the program’s twentieth anniversary in 2021, the NSF reported it had invested over $365 million in the program and had distributed funds to “217 different institutions of higher education in 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”

[snip]

In their award abstract, Sánchez-Peña and her colleagues state that through their project they intend to “create a comprehensive theoretical model of the complex dynamics and distinct configurations of factors that lead to the outcomes targeted by a BPI” and “refine the theory of drivers and barriers to the BPI goals.”

[snip]

The aims of their research, they state, include testing the capabilities of different analytical and modeling techniques in “refining theories for institutional change” and “innovat[ing] in the translation of qualitative evidence into quantitative performance measures” that could aid in modeling the impact of Broadening Participation Initiatives.

To do this, Sánchez-Peña and her colleagues state they will divide their project into two phases.

In the first phase, they state, they intend to collect publicly available data from 15 top-tier research institutions that were early recipients of ADVANCE grants from the NSF and 15 comparable institutions that did not receive such grants, then attempt to identify “different theoretical paths leading to outcomes related to the recruitment and retention of women, particularly women of color.”

In the second phase of the project, they state, they plan to conduct focus groups and analyze data from “interviews with women faculty and administrators from a subset of the selected institutions.”

“The research outcomes of this project,” they state, “will include (1) refined theories of institutional change for the advancement of women faculty in engineering, including potentially new and confirmed causal relationships, as well as identification of persisting barriers and points of leverage for women[’]s success, (2) methodological innovations in translating qualitative data to quantitative performance measures, and the use of complex systems methods to study institutional change.”

Apparently no one at the NSF is actually thinking.  They are tossing word salads and hoping they make sense.  Instead of solving established problems or revealing new realities, they are spending money refining theories, developing labored acronyms, creating comprehensive theoretical models of the complex dynamics and distinct configurations of factors that lead to women not choosing to be more involved in STEM.  Oh, and they'll also innovate the translation of qualitative evidence into quantitative performance measures.

An awful lot of cognitive rabbit food tossed out there.  The $300,000 grant might be better spent researching why the NSF is spending scarce taxpayer money on a non-problem.  

Better yet, they could simply stop spending any money on any program which does not have a clear problem that needs solving or clarification.