NSF identifies five questions that proposal reviewers should consider in relation to the NSF merit criteria of Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts.1 One of these questions is, “To what extent do the proposed activities suggest and explore creative, original, or potentially transformative concepts?”
NSF defines transformative research as involving “ideas, discoveries, or tools that radically change our understanding of an important existing scientific or engineering concept or educational practice or leads to the creation of a new paradigm or field of science, engineering, or education. Such research challenges current understanding or provides pathways to new frontiers.”2
The Transformative Research section of the NSF website (www.nsf.gov/about/transformative_research/) offers additional insights on this topic. It explains that transformative research, “challenges conventional wisdom; leads to unexpected insights that enable new techniques or methodologies; or redefines the boundaries of science, engineering, or education.”
Understanding what NSF means by “transformative” is important so that proposers and grantees use the term appropriately and do not accidentally overstate their project’s potential or actual achievements. While some projects may bring about important institutional transformation, that type of transformation is of a smaller scale than the “radical changes” in scientific understanding and practices associated with NSF’s definition. Claims related to “transformation” should be reserved for the truly extraordinary, revolutionary, and ground-breaking changes in understanding or practice.
Lori Wingate 
Executive Director, The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University
Lori has a Ph.D. in evaluation and more than 20 years of experience in the field of program evaluation. She is co-principal investigator of EvaluATE and leads and a variety of evaluation projects at WMU focused on STEM education, health, and higher education initiatives. Dr. Wingate has led numerous webinars and workshops on evaluation in a variety of contexts, including CDC University and the American Evaluation Association Summer Evaluation Institute. She is an associate member of the graduate faculty at WMU.
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EvaluATE is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers 0802245, 1204683, 1600992, and 1841783. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed on this site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.