Skip to main content
Newsletter Sign Up
Home

Main navigation

  • About
    • What is ADVANCEing FieldSafety?
    • Meet our Team
    • AFS Participant Guidelines
  • Training Program
    • Overview
    • Online Course
    • Debrief Workshops
    • Meet Your Instructors
    • Voices from the Field
  • Toolkit
    • About the Toolkit
    • Access Resources
  • Research and Evaluation
  • How to Engage
    • Contact Us
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Research Participation Sign Up

  1. Home
  2. ADVANCEing FieldSafety Training Program

ADVANCEing FieldSafety Training Program

Colorful wheel with graphic of people working on equipmentPrioritizing safety and safeguarding against identity-based harassment and other toxic behaviors in field campaigns is critical to ensure safe and productive research environments. While harassment and discrimination in the fields are not new phenomena, widespread recognition of their prevalence and harm (Figure 1) has led to demands for culture change and increased training and preparation (Clancy et al., 2014; Fischer et al., 2021, Mervis, 2022; USAP, 2022). In response, funding agencies have worked to develop and support institutional change initiatives such as the Department of Energy (DOE, 2022) and NSF’s new Proposal and Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) requirement for safe and welcoming work environments for off-campus and off-site research (PAPPG Section 2E9).

Figure 1. Factors that lead to increased challenges during fieldwork.

The goal of ADVANCEing FieldSafety is, therefore, to create and disseminate a field safety, anti-harassment, and bystander intervention certificate training program that is accompanied by the development of a toolkit to support field teams in planning safe and welcoming field campaigns. A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is available and hosted on Coursera, allowing easy access and broad participation. The MOOC will have both participation (online, self-paced) and certification pathways (participation + facilitated debriefs/reflections) that will help field teams meet NSF’s new PAPPG field safety and anti-harassment mitigation requirements (NSF, 2023). The MOOC content will also be accompanied by a toolkit, which will contain additional resources and readings relevant to each course module.

Course Certification Pathways

There are several ways that you and your team can interact with the ADVANCEing FieldSafety Training Program. The AFS MOOC is free to all individuals of interest, regardless of your experience with conducting fieldwork, through Coursera. Individuals can view the course at their speed and focus on the topic of interest.

However, participants who complete the entire course through the official pathways listed below can receive a certificate at an additional cost.

  1. Coursera Certificate ($49 USD)
    1. Requirements: 
      1. Completion of course and assessments.
  2. ADVANCEing FieldSafety Certificate (Price to be determined)
    1. Alignment with new NSF PAPPG requirement for safe and inclusive work environments for off-campus and off-site research (Section 2E9).
    2. Requirements:
      1. Completion of course and assessments, and
      2. Participation in a series of two ADVANCEing FieldSafety Debrief Workshops.

Learn More 
Access the Course 
Learn More 
Sign Up for Workshop 
Learn More 
Access Resources 
Learn More 
Sign up to Participate 
Contact Us
Sign Up for the AFS Newsletter
Search

ADVANCEing FieldSafety. Building Welcoming and Safe Field Teams

ADVANCEing FieldSafety is a three-year grant funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Research, Innovation, Synergies, and Education (RISE) within NSF’s Directorate for Geosciences (GEO), award numbers: 2307410, 2307411, 2307412, and 2307413. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Log In

                                                                                                                                      

             Text

Description automatically generated    California State University-Los Angeles   

©CIRES 2025