Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for EMpowering People to achieve Optimal Well-being through Engineering Research: EMPOWER Center

规划资助：通过工程研究赋予人们实现最佳福祉的工程研究中心：EMPOWER 中心

• 批准号: 1840570
• 负责人: Julie Ivy
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: North Carolina State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1840570&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Planning; Grant; Engineering; Research; Center

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Health inequities are not isolated but intricately interconnected with education and wealth as highlighted by complex problems such as the Flint water crisis. Disparities within these areas negatively affect the well-being of individuals, communities, and society. Community-based, private and public social-action agencies, such as soup kitchens and housing shelters, tend to operate in isolation and often have limited ability to communicate let alone collaborate with other agencies. The opportunities and challenges that lie within the intersection of health, education, and wealth require engineers, social scientists, and computer scientists working together to improve the well-being of individuals and communities. To address these disparities, this planning grant will bring together multiple, diverse interest groups to drive meaningful societal impacts and inform the development of a human-centered engineering research center. This proposed center will be focused on EMpowering People to achieve Optimal Well-being through Engineering Research (EMPOWER Center). Regional planning meetings will connect non-profit agencies to each other, to potential industry partners, and to the engineering community. This will facilitate information sharing, idea generation, and foster the development of regional stakeholder community networks to revolutionize how our nation addresses well-being. The proposed EMPOWER Center will harness, synthesize, and learn from data. This data will be gathered from disparate sources that are distributed, historically disconnected, and have varied levels or a lack of structure. The goal of these activities is to help inform and empower communities to address disparities. We will develop a data-enabled intelligent community-wellness monitoring system that enables policy makers, community leaders, and individuals to make informed decisions that yields improved wellness. This planning grant will develop and engage community partners as members of the research team and establish an inclusive culture for all key stakeholders. To achieve our goals, the planning grant will: develop a network of research partners, non-profit agencies, and industry partners from the breadth of regions covered by the ERC partner institutions; form a convergent research team that integrates expertise within engineering, social sciences, ethnographic research, education, medicine, and business with community-based thought leadership; and identify specific community-centered and community-informed research goals for the EMPOWER center. The EMPOWER Center will capture the power of convergent research as engineers, ethnographic researchers, computer scientists, social and behavioral scientists, educational experts, and members of the medical, legal, and business communities collaborate to improve the wellness of individuals and communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

工程研究中心规划补助金竞赛是作为 ERC 计划内的试点征集活动进行的。 作为整个 ERC 竞赛的一部分，规划拨款不是必需的，而是旨在培养团队之间的能力，以规划融合的、中心规模的工程研究。健康不平等不是孤立的，而是与教育和财富错综复杂地相互关联，这一点通过以下复杂问题凸显出来：弗林特水危机。这些领域内的差异会对个人、社区和社会的福祉产生负面影响。以社区为基础的私人和公共社会行动机构，例如流动厨房和住房庇护所，往往孤立运作，沟通能力往往有限，更不用说与其他机构合作了。健康、教育和财富交叉领域存在的机遇和挑战需要工程师、社会科学家和计算机科学家共同努力，以改善个人和社区的福祉。为了解决这些差异，这笔规划拨款将汇集多个不同的利益团体，以推动有意义的社会影响，并为以人为本的工程研究中心的发展提供信息。该拟议中心将专注于通过工程研究赋予人们权力以实现最佳福祉（EMPOWER 中心）。 区域规划会议将把非营利机构彼此、潜在的行业合作伙伴以及工程界联系起来。这将促进信息共享、创意产生，并促进区域利益相关者社区网络的发展，从而彻底改变我们国家解决福祉的方式。拟建的 EMPOWER 中心将利用、综合数据并从中学习。这些数据将从分散的、历史上断开的、具有不同级别或缺乏结构的不同来源收集。这些活动的目标是帮助社区了解情况并赋予其权力，以解决差异问题。我们将开发一个基于数据的智能社区健康监测系统，使政策制定者、社区领袖和个人能够做出明智的决策，从而改善健康。这笔规划拨款将培养和吸引社区合作伙伴作为研究团队的成员，并为所有主要利益相关者建立包容性文化。为了实现我们的目标，规划拨款将： 建立一个由 ERC 合作机构覆盖的广泛地区的研究合作伙伴、非营利机构和行业合作伙伴组成的网络；组建一个融合研究团队，将工程、社会科学、人种学研究、教育、医学和商业领域的专业知识与基于社区的思想领导力相结合；并确定 EMPOWER 中心以社区为中心和社区知情的具体研究目标。 EMPOWER 中心将发挥工程师、人种学研究人员、计算机科学家、社会和行为科学家、教育专家以及医学、法律和商业界成员合作改善个人和社区健康的融合研究的力量。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。