Planning Grant: Developing a Strategic Plan and Infrastructure Needs Assessment for the CICHAZ Field Station

德克萨斯农工大学获得了一笔拨款，用于支持阿瓜扎卡调查中心Científicas （CICHAZ: www.cichaz.org）制定一项战略计划，以改善未来的基础设施，继续为不同群体的国际生活和社会科学家以及教育和推广项目提供服务。CICHAZ位于墨西哥生物和文化高度多样性的地区，但缺乏学术和研究机构，已成为社会科学、淡水生态学和环境生物学等多学科研究的中心。中心目前的需要是制定计划，为一个当代的实地站提供基础设施和设备，为越来越多的研究人员和外联工作提供服务。这个规划项目有两个主要目标：(1)使CICHAZ的工作人员能够访问包括NSF FSML支持的站在内的已建立的、富有成效的实地站，并与他们的领导一起学习具有研究和教育任务的站的最佳实践；(2)举办研讨会，将来自美墨边境双方的利益相关者聚集在一起，包括教育和研究背景，以及CICHAZ的生命科学和社会科学观点，以制定战略计划。最后，从访问其他监测站和讲习班中学到的做法将最终形成一个五年计划和其他具有实现这些目标的里程碑的长期目标。作为一个具有强大外联使命的国际研究站，特别关注美国和墨西哥之间的研究和教育关系，该研究站长期倡议的更广泛影响包括为美国和墨西哥本科生提供研究经验，并为当地初中和高中学生提供指导计划。这项规划工作将具体包括制定有助于实现这些目标的战略的活动。

Texas A&M University is awarded a grant to support the Centro de Investigaciones Científicas de las Huastecas "Aguazarca" (CICHAZ: www.cichaz.org) in developing a strategic plan for future improvements to infrastructure to continue to serve a diverse group of international life and social scientists as well as educational and outreach programs. Located in a region of Mexico with high biological and cultural diversity but devoid of academic and research institutions, CICHAZ has become a hub for multi-disciplinary research on social sciences, freshwater ecology, and environmental biology. The current need for CICHAZ is to develop plans for providing the infrastructure and equipment for a contemporary field station that will serve a growing group of researchers as well as outreach efforts. This planning project has two primary objectives: (1) enable CICHAZ personnel to visit established, productive field stations including NSF FSML supported stations and work with their leaders to learn best practices for stations with research and education missions and (2) to hold workshops that will bring together stakeholders from both sides of the US-Mexico border, both education and research backgrounds, and both life science and social science perspectives at CICHAZ in order to develop a strategic plan. Ultimately, the practices learned from visiting other stations together with the workshops will culminate in a 5-year plan and additional long-term objects with landmarks for achieving those objectives. As an international research station with a strong outreach mission and particular focus on research and educational relationships between the U.S. and Mexico, the broader impacts of the longer-term initiatives of the field station include research experiences for US and Mexican undergraduates and a mentoring program for local junior and high school students. This planning effort will specifically include activities to develop strategy that will help to achieve these goals.