US-Africa Workshop: Enhancing Collaborative Research on the Environment in SubSaharan Africa

Semazzi 0444295该奖项支持PI会议/研讨会，以加强NSF资助的撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）环境合作研究。研讨会将汇集50-60名由NSF资助的美国科学界成员，他们的20名非洲合作者，来自资助SSA环境研究的各种NSF项目的项目官员，以及支持SSA相关工作的其他机构和团体的代表。这次会议将是第一次有这样一个区域重点的PI会议，将是多学科的，涉及代表多个学科（如生态学，系统分类学，大气科学，地球科学，人类学，地理科学和环境工程）的几个董事会的奖项PI。 研讨会将以海报会议为特色，以分享有关正在进行的活动、全体讲座和科学以及后勤/业务主题工作组的信息。国际科学与工程办公室赞助这次研讨会，以加强NSF在该地区的现有投资，促进和促进跨层次的多学科合作，整合和综合结果。该研讨会还将汇集在SSA为美国学生提供研究经验的经验，从而提供如何提供更多和更好的这样的机会洞察PI。参加会议的还有一组与NSF PI合作的非洲科学家，从而提供有关补充非洲优势和利益的科学项目的信息。另一组参与者将是资助撒哈拉以南非洲相关工作的其他机构和基金会，提高利用NSF资金的可能性，特别是加强非洲人力和物力建设的方式，从而加强相互科学合作。研讨会的主要部分将是在NSF召开的为期三天的会议。讲习班与会者将努力查明合作科研的机会以及在知识和业务方面的协同领域，查明与具体供资机制有关的具体伙伴关系，建议促进更有效合作的机制，并查明建立和维持研究网络的机制。其中一个工作组将侧重于这一学者群体所面临的通信和信息技术挑战。为了更有效地解决这个子主题，几位IT专家将在最后一天参加主研讨会，并留在NSF，在第四天与一部分参与者一起解决IT挑战。该小组将致力于建议加强沟通的方法，其中可能包括收集研究/人员目录和书目，解决信息/数据管理问题，分享信息技术基础设施的进步和机会，以及利用数字图书馆加强美国和非洲的国际科学研究和教育。 研讨会的结果将载于一份报告，该报告将以电子形式在全球网络上提供，并在非洲以光盘形式分发。

Semazzi 0444295This award supports a PI meeting/workshop for enhancing NSF-funded collaborative research on the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The workshop will bring together 50-60 members of the U.S. scientific community funded by NSF to work in the SSA region, 20 of their African collaborators, program officers from the various NSF programs that fund environmental research in SSA, and representatives from other agencies and groups that support related work in SSA. The meeting will be the first PI meeting to have such a regional focus and will be multidisciplinary, involving PIs with awards from several directorates representing multiple disciplines (e.g. ecology, systematics, atmospheric sciences, earth sciences, anthropology, geographic sciences, and environmental engineering). The workshop will feature poster sessions to share information about ongoing activities, plenary lectures, and working groups on scientific as well as logistical/operational themes. The Office of International Science and Engineering is sponsoring this workshop in order to strengthen NSF's existing investment in this region by promoting and facilitating multi-disciplinary collaboration, integration and synthesis of results across hierarchical levels. The workshop will also bring together PIs with experience in providing research experiences for US students in SSA, thus providing insight into how to provide more and better such opportunities. Also participating in the meeting will be a group of African scientists who collaborate with NSF PI's, thus providing information on the scientific projects that complement African strengths and interests. Another group of participants will be other agencies and foundations that fund related work in SSA, enhancing the likelihood of leveraging NSF funding, particularly in ways that strengthen human and physical capacity building in Africa and so strengthen the mutual scientific collaborations. The main part of the workshop will be a three-day meeting convened at NSF. The workshop participants will work to identify collaborative scientific research opportunities and areas of synergy, both intellectual and operational, identify specific partnerships linked with specific mechanisms for funding, recommend mechanisms for fostering more effective collaboration, and identify mechanisms for building and maintaining research networks. One working group will focus on communication and information technology challenges faced by this community of scholars. To more effectively address this sub-topic, several IT experts will join the main workshop on its last day and remain at NSF, working with a subset of the participants on the fourth day to address the IT challenges. This group will work to recommend methods for enhancing communication that might include assembling research/personnel directories and bibliographies, addressing issues of information/data management, sharing information on IT infrastructure advances and opportunities, and the use of digital libraries to strengthen international science research and education in the US and Africa. The results of the workshop will be available in a report to be available electronically on the worldwide web, and distributed on CDs in Africa.