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In 2016, 10 universities launched a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) aimed at increasing the number of scholars from Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) populations entering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty careers. NICs bring together stakeholders focused on a common goal to accelerate innovation through structured, ongoing intervention development, implementation, and refinement. We theorized a NIC organizational structure would aid understandings of a complex problem in different contexts and accelerate opportunities to develop and improve interventions to address the problem. A distinctive feature of this NIC is its diverse institutional composition of public and private, predominantly white institutions, a historically Black university, a Hispanic-serving institution, and land grant institutions located across eight states and Washington, DC, United States. NIC members hold different positions within their institutions and have access to varied levers of change. Among the many lessons learned through this community case study, analyzing and addressing failed strategies is as equally important to a healthy NIC as is sharing learning from successful interventions. We initially relied on pre-existing relationships and assumptions about how we would work together, rather than making explicit how the NIC would develop, establish norms, understand common processes, and manage changing relationships. We had varied understandings of the depth of campus differences, sometimes resulting in frustrations about the disparate progress on goals. NIC structures require significant engagement with the group, often more intensive than traditional multi-institution organizational structures. They require time to develop and ongoing maintenance in order to advance the work. We continue to reevaluate our model for leadership, climate, diversity, conflict resolution, engagement, decision-making, roles, and data, leading to increased investment in the success of all NIC institutions. Our NIC has evolved from the traditional NIC model to become the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) AGEP NIC model with five key characteristics: (1) A well-specified aim, (2) An understanding of systems, including a variety of contexts and different organizations, (3) A culture and practice of shared leadership and inclusivity, (4) The use of data reflecting different institutional contexts, and (5) The ability to accelerate infrastructure and interventions. We conclude with recommendations for those considering developing a NIC to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. 

A search for pair production of squarks or gluinos decaying via sleptons or weak bosons is reported. The search targets a final state with exactly two leptons with same-sign electric charge or at least three leptons without any charge requirement. The analysed data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb⁻¹of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Multiple signal regions are defined, targeting several SUSY simplified models yielding the desired final states. A single control region is used to constrain the normalisation of theWZ+ jets background. No significant excess of events over the Standard Model expectation is observed. The results are interpreted in the context of several supersymmetric models featuring R-parity conservation or R-parity violation, yielding exclusion limits surpassing those from previous searches. In models considering gluino (squark) pair production, gluino (squark) masses up to 2.2 (1.7) TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level.

 

A search for supersymmetry targeting the direct production of winos and higgsinos is conducted in final states with either two leptons (eorμ) with the same electric charge, or three leptons. The analysis uses 139 fb⁻¹ofppcollision data at$$ \sqrt{s} $$$\sqrt{s}$= 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess over the Standard Model expectation is observed. Simplified and complete models with and withoutR-parity conservation are considered. In topologies with intermediate states including eitherWhorWZpairs, wino masses up to 525 GeV and 250 GeV are excluded, respectively, for a bino of vanishing mass. Higgsino masses smaller than 440 GeV are excluded in a naturalR-parity-violating model with bilinear terms. Upper limits on the production cross section of generic events beyond the Standard Model as low as 40 ab are obtained in signal regions optimised for these models and also for anR-parity-violating scenario with baryon-number-violating higgsino decays into top quarks and jets. The analysis significantly improves sensitivity to supersymmetric models and other processes beyond the Standard Model that may contribute to the considered final states.

 

Search for a new pseudoscalar a-boson decaying to muons in events with additional top quark pairs. 

A search for dark matter produced in association with a Higgs boson in final states with two hadronically decayingτ-leptons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis uses 139 fb⁻¹of proton-proton collision data at$$ \sqrt{s} $$$\sqrt{s}$= 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider between 2015 and 2018. No evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model is found. The results are interpreted in terms of a 2HDM+amodel featuring two scalar Higgs doublets and a pseudoscalar singlet field. Exclusion limits on the parameters of the model in selected benchmark scenarios are derived at 95% confidence level. Model-independent limits are also set on the visible cross-section for processes beyond the Standard Model producing missing transverse momentum in association with a Higgs boson decaying intoτ-leptons.