A Workshop for Integrating Social Science Research, Washington, DC

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0625039KrupnickResearch in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences (hereafter referred to simply as social sciences) is critically important to the success of NSF's proposed environmental observatories and to resolving the "grand challenge" science questions the observatories are addressing. Specific to the social sciences, there is recognition that better decision-making on environmental issues requires new social science research to understand the coupling of human and natural systems, the feedbacks of policy, social systems, and environmental systems, and the ways that fundamental knowledge can inform policy. Although the individual observatory efforts focus on different grand challenges and science questions, there is broad similarity regarding the kinds of social science issues that each initiative must address to be successful. This workshop will bring together leading social scientists from such fields as public policy, economics, sociology, anthropology, and geography as a step in building a broad community that can address these common issues more efficiently than could be achieved by each community working separately. This follows similar workshops on cross-EO issues for sensors/sensor networks, cyberinfrastructure, and modeling. The workshop will explore common threads connecting the initiatives and the science and engineering domains they represent. The workshop will develop a strategic plan for integrating activities and discuss as the resources needed to support an integrated research agenda. A planning committee of social scientists associated with the following NSF environmental observatories"NEON, LTER, and CLEANER and CUAHSI (Hydrologic Observatories), which comprise the WATERS Network-will develop the detailed workshop agenda, list of invited participants, and a white paper that will serve as the basis for much of the discussion during the workshop. To facilitate participation in the workshop by NSF program officers, the workshop will be held in the Washington DC area in fall of 2006.