Task Force to Re-envision the Network Office of the Long-term Ecological Research Program

长期生态研究（LTER）计划目前支持一个网络办公室，该办公室协调26个活跃研究地点的研究，帮助组织年度科学理事会会议沿着三年一度的全体科学家会议，维护和开发数据维护计划以确保数据可用性，并提供信息管理和数据收集培训课程。该项目将支持收集关于网络办事处未来可能的作用和责任的广泛意见，调查有或没有协调办事处的其他研究网络，并就未来网络办事处的可能结构提出建议。 该项目的三个目标是适当的，具有充分的包容性，以确保考虑到不同的意见和选择。将咨询科学协会、研究团体和联邦机构的全面清单，以获得投入。为实施这些活动而组建的工作组由生态学、环境生物学和生态系统科学领域的主要研究人员组成。所取得的成果将大大有助于建立一个网络办公室，以确保在不同的LTER社区之间进行沟通与合作。工作队本身由4名女性研究人员和1名男性研究人员组成，打破了科学活动的正常平衡。计划开展的各种活动将确保广泛的族裔群体与来自各种不同机构的个人一起沿着参与。最后，目前的网络办公室对大量LTER的广泛影响负有主要责任，这些影响将在工作队的讨论中占有重要地位。

The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program currently supports a network office that coordinates research across the 26 active research sites, helps to organize an annual Science Council meeting along with a tri-annual All Scientists meeting, maintains and develops data maintenance programs to ensure data availability, and provides training sessions for information management and data collection. This project will support an effort to gather broad input on potential future roles and responsibilities of a network office, survey other research networks that do or do not have coordinating offices, and suggest potential structures for a future network office. The three goals of the project are appropriate and sufficiently inclusive to ensure that diverse opinions and options are considered. An inclusive list of scientific societies, research communities, and federal agencies will be consulted for input. The task force assembled to implement these activities consists of leading researchers in the fields of ecology, environmental biology, and ecosystem science. The results obtained will contribute significantly to the development of a network office that ensures communication and cooperation across the diverse LTER community.The broader impacts of this project are strong. The task force itself is comprised of 4 female researchers and one male, tipping the normal balance of scientific activities. The diverse activities planned will ensure that a wide range of ethnic groups is included along with individuals from very different sorts of institutions. Finally, the current network office has lead responsibility for a large number of LTER broader impacts, and these will figure heavily into the task force discussions.