Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Employment of Persons with Disabilities through Inclusion Engineering (EDIE)

规划资助：共融工程残疾人就业工程研究中心（EDIE）

• 批准号: 2123722
• 负责人: Keivan Stassun
• 金额: $ 9.99万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2023-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2123722&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Planning; Grant; Engineering; Research; Center

Adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities (e.g., autism spectrum disorder; ASD) and/or motor impairments (e.g., multiple sclerosis; MS) have the lowest rates of any type of employment in the US (unemployment rate of 63-68%). The potential economic benefits of improving employment outcomes for these individuals are enormous. For example, the current economic opportunity cost to the US economy of unemployed individuals with ASD is estimated at $90 billion per year, to say nothing of the immeasurable human costs; for individuals with MS, the estimated loss to the economy is approximately $25 billion per year. This National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC) Planning Grant award to Vanderbilt University will address this potential by creating the capacity for a future NSF ERC for the Employment of Persons with Disabilities through Inclusion Engineering (EDIE). EDIE would seek to create engineered systems to lower barriers to employment for neurodiverse and motor-impaired individuals, such that they can more readily maintain or pursue meaningful employment. To be fully ready for ERC scale, we need to more fully develop a number of critical elements through this planning grant, specifically: (1) An ERC work plan guided by a 5-year timeline for deliverables that emphasizes (a) stakeholder engagement and assessment of user needs, (b) pilot testing of technologies with and through partner organizations, (c) development of technologies to minimum viable product (MVP) stage, (d) testing through large-scale deployment, and (e) sustainability through commercialization of the technologies. (2) Commercialization strategies (e.g., start-ups and licensing agreements) that would create a self-sustained innovation ecosystem. (3) A plan to gradually expand the Center’s scope to include a wider range of both technologies and disabilities, consistent with the mission of creating a more inclusive workforce. The proposed vision of the planned EDIE ERC is to create intelligent, adaptive technologies that enable employment and workplace success for individuals with neurodevelopmental and/or motor disabilities, increasing human productivity and economic impact, and leading to a more fully inclusive workforce and society. Guiding these Engineered Systems would be the enabling idea of Inclusion Engineering, an emerging research paradigm representing the convergence of engineering with implementation science, labor and economic policy, and commercial innovation, toward enabling full societal inclusion of all individuals. Multiple technological innovations will need to be pursued in concert toward a truly systems-level solution for full inclusion of motor-impaired and neurodiverse individuals for the future of work. Thus, we envision that surrounding and supporting EDIE’s core research thrusts will be an innovation ecosystem that includes commercialization efforts coupled to key stakeholder needs and feedback, a culture of diversity and inclusion with regards both to Center personnel and end-users, and a multi-pronged effort toward developing a future engineering workforce that is trained, equipped, and inspired to advance the future of Inclusion Engineering. The preliminary convergent research thrusts that we have identified are: (1) Workplace disability inclusion and employment nondiscrimination policy to ensure these individual technologies and the resulting engineering systems are based on Participatory Action Research (PAR) to have real-world uptake and societal impact; (2) Social Human-Machine Interaction (sHMI) to support neurodiverse individuals; and (3) Physical Human-Machine Interaction (pHMI) to support motor-impaired individuals. The second and third thrusts map directly into engineered systems, while the first guides them and also addresses issues that are not directly addressable via technological solutions.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.

神经发育障碍（例如自闭症谱系障碍； ASD）和/或运动障碍（例如，多发性硬化症; MS）的成年人的就业率最低（失业率为63-68％）。改善这些人就业成果的潜在经济利益是巨大的。例如，当前为美国自ASD的失业者经济的经济机会成本估计为每年900亿美元，而不必说明显的人为成本；对于具有MS的个人，估计对经济的损失约为每年250亿美元。这项国家科学基金会工程研究中心（ERC）计划授予范德比尔特大学的计划授予奖项将通过为未来的NSF ERC创造能力来解决这一潜力，从而通过包容性工程（EDIE）为雇用残疾人的就业人士。埃迪（Edie）将寻求创建工程系统，以降低神经多样性和运动障碍人士就业的障碍，以便他们可以更容易地维护或购买有意义的就业。要充分准备ERC量表，我们需要通过此计划赠款更充分地开发许多关键要素，特别是：（1）由5年的ERC工作计划指导的是，以5年的时间表来指导（a）（a）利益相关者的参与和评估用户需求，（b）通过合作伙伴组织和跨越的技术开发（c）通过技术的开发（c），（c），（c）MIN-SEVER（c），（c）MIN-SEVERS（C），（c）M。部署以及（e）通过这些技术商业化的可持续性。 （2）商业化策略（例如，初创企业和许可协议）将创建自我维持的创新生态系统。 （3）一个计划逐渐扩大中心的范围，包括更多的技术和计划中的Edie ERC的拟议愿景，是为了创建聪明的，适应性的技术，使神经发展和/或运动障碍的人能够就业和工作场所成功，从而使人类生产力和经济影响和经济影响和更具全面的劳动力，以及更具全面的工作和社会。指导这些工程系统将是包容工程的促进思想，这是一种新兴的研究范式，代表工程学与实施科学，劳动和经济政策以及商业创新的融合，以使所有个人充分社会包容。为了充分包含运动障碍和神经多样性的个人，将需要进行多种技术创新，以实现真正的系统级解决方案。 That, we envision that surrounding and supporting EDIE’s core research thrusts will be an innovation ecosystem that includes commercialization efforts coupled to key stakeholder needs and feedback, a culture of diversity and inclusion with regards both to Center personnel and end-users, and a multi-pronged effort towards developing a future engineering workforce that is trained, equivalent, and inspired to advance the future of Inclusion Engineering.我们已经确定的初步收敛研究推力是：（1）工作场所残疾包容和就业非歧视政策，以确保这些个人技术和最终的工程系统基于参与性行动研究（PAR），以具有现实世界的吸收和社会影响； （2）社会人机互动（SHMI）支持神经多样性的人； （3）物理人机相互作用（PHMI），以支持运动障碍的个体。第二和第三推力直接映射到工程系统中，而第一个则指导它们，还解决了无法通过技术解决方案直接解决的问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估评估标准来通过评估来获得的支持。