The Interdisciplinary Consortium for Research and Educational Access in Science and Engineering (INCREASE) is an organization to promote research in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs), involving utilization of national user facilities – in particular, the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory – as well as to facilitate education and research training, especially for members of minority groups: African-Americans, Hispanics, and women.

A primary goal is to initiate the establishment of a unique pool of minority role models, beginning at the undergraduate level to the professorate and the scientific/engineering professionals with a broad range of educational, research, and engineering skills required to design and utilize advanced instrumentation as applied to national user facilities. With a consortium, communication, innovation, and collaborations among member institutions can be facilitated through targeted workshops and focused research initiatives; common research themes and education partnership between member institutions can be established to take advantage of major funding targeting minority-serving institutions; educational and research issues pertinent to minority groups can be indentified and tackled.