RCN: An Ecosystem Research Cooperative for Northeastern North America

该奖项将支持东北生态系统研究合作组织（NERC）的进一步发展，该组织是美国东北部和加拿大东部生态系统研究人员的基层科学组织。 NERC致力于综合区域研究和向决策者和公众传播知识。NERC成立仅2.5年，已发展成为一个重要而有前途的网络，在科学界得到广泛支持。 NERC的研究人员已经建立了任务组，通过确定关键研究问题，开发数据库，解释区域模式，并制作提案和出版物来调查东北部的重要环境问题。 NERC计划增加其所代表的学科数量和所服务的科学界的广度。 它将促进现有工作组之间的互动，并启动一项外联方案，帮助向公众和决策者传播科学信息。一个目标是使NERC充分发挥其作为一个独特组织的潜力，致力于综合整个地区的特定地点的信息，并积极传播这种知识。 NERC将通过其对区域尺度科学和来自许多地点的信息的综合的关注，对生态系统研究界产生广泛的影响。 NERC还将影响政策竞技场，因为它将把积极传播科学知识作为首要目标。

This award will support further development of the Northeastern Ecosystem Research Cooperative (NERC), which is a grass-roots scientific organization of ecosystem researchers in the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada. The NERC is dedicated to integrative regional research and dissemination of knowledge to policy makers and the public. In existence for only 2.5 years, the NERC has developed into a vital and promising network with broad support within the scientific community. NERC researchers have established task groups that are investigating important environmental issues in the Northeast by identifying key research questions, developing databases, interpreting regional patterns, and producing proposals and publications. The NERC plans to increase the number of disciplines represented and the breadth of the scientific community that it serves. It will stimulate interactions among existing task groups, and initiate an outreach program that will help disseminate scientific information to the public and policy makers. A goal is to have the NERC reach its full potential as a unique organization dedicated to synthesizing site-specific information from throughout the region and actively communicating that knowledge. The NERC will have broad impacts on the ecosystem research community through its focus on regional-scale science and synthesis of information from many sites. The NERC will also impact the policy arena because it will make active dissemination of scientific knowledge a primary goal.