COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: RCN-SEES for Urban Sustainability: Research Coordination and Synthesis for a Transformative Future

该奖项由NSF的科学，工程和可持续发展教育（SEES）活动资助，旨在应对创造可持续发展世界的挑战。 了解城市可持续性和提高决策者实现可持续管理的能力是21世纪世纪的迫切需要。 学习如何实现城市的可持续转型需要了解城市系统将面临的无数转型。 为了应对这些挑战，该项目将建立一个跨学科的城市可持续性研究协调网络（RCN），该网络将整合和综合城市研究，同时孵化面向解决方案的产品。 这一独特的网络将对处于不同转型程度的各种城市采用比较方法，以：1）了解导致当代城市危机和转型的社会、经济和环境触发因素; 2）使用复杂适应系统方法来了解当代城市如何对转型触发因素作出反应; 3）将能源-水资源关系作为一个透镜，了解当代城市如何最好地过渡到更可持续的未来。 城市可持续发展RCN将开始与学者，学生，博士后，政策制定者，城市规划者，管理者和其他以行动为重点的城市参与者广泛的跨学科核心组代表14个城市在不同的过渡阶段。 随着网络目标更加专注于孵化以解决方案为导向的项目，网络扩张将是国际性的、包容性的、灵活的。 该网络将使用各种协作工具，在面对面活动、虚拟互动和教育活动中促进综合活动、信息共享和产品传播。 培训新的专业人员和提高现有专业人员实现城市可持续性目标的能力是该网络的另一个教育目标。 该网络还将为可持续发展科学家、官员和从业人员之间的实用信息交流开发新的工具和动机。 城市可持续性区域网络将孵化活动，并产生关于最有效的方法和媒体的产品，以与从业人员进行交流。

This award is funded under NSF's Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) activities, which aim to address the challenges of creating a sustainable world. Understanding urban sustainability and improving the ability of policy makers to achieve sustainable management are pressing needs of the 21st century. Learning how to enable sustainable transitions for cities requires an understanding of the myriad transitions urban systems will face. To meet these challenges, this project will establish an interdisciplinary Urban Sustainability Research Coordination Network (RCN) that will integrate and synthesize urban research while incubating solutions-oriented products. This unique network will use a comparative approach across a diversity of cities that are in various degrees of transition to: 1) understand the social, economic, and environmental triggers that have led contemporary cities to crisis and transition; 2) use complex adaptive systems approaches to understand how contemporary cities react to transition triggers, and; 3) use the energy-water resource nexus as a lens to understand how contemporary cities may best transition to more sustainable futures. The Urban Sustainability RCN will begin with a broadly interdisciplinary core group of academics, students, postdocs, policy-makers, city planners, managers, and other action-focused urban players representing 14 cities in various stages of transition. Network expansion will be international, inclusive, nimble, and flexible as network objectives become more focused on incubating solutions-oriented projects. The network will use a wide array of collaborative tools to nurture synthesis activities, information sharing, and product dissemination during face-to-face activities, virtual interactions, and educational activities. Training new professionals and improve the ability of existing professionals to achieve urban sustainability objectives is an additional, educational goal of this network. The network also will develop new tools and motivations for the exchange of practical information among sustainability scientists, officers, and practitioners. The Urban Sustainability RCN will incubate activities and generate products about the most effective approaches and media for communication with practitioners.