The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC): Advancing socio-environmental research through computational, theoretical, and interdisciplinary science

公平、合乎道德和可持续地利用地球有限的资源，需要了解人类行为如何影响和应对环境。国家社会环境综合中心（SESYNC）促进自然科学和社会科学领域的新研究，以实现这种理解，并提供解决全球人类社会面临的复杂问题所需的知识。该中心将开展教育和培训活动，以建立在所有职业阶段解决复杂问题的能力，并培养具有协作和沟通技能的新一代研究人员。这些活动将通过将决策者、政府机构和非政府机构纳入所有活动，强调社会环境综合与现实世界问题的相关性，确保这些知识使用者获得作出正确决定所需的信息。新的投资将培养未来的思想领袖、教育工作者和决策者。能力建设包括使服务不足的群体更多地参与解决社会问题。与传统黑人学院和大学的合作，加上对本科生和教师的积极指导，将使这些社区参与具有重大文化、经济和社会影响的环境挑战。中心的活动将建立计算素养，并提供公开可用的分析工具，这将推动计算培训远远超出SESYNC的参与者。通过一系列新活动，SESYNC将建立解决紧迫社会挑战的能力。SESYNC已经确立了自己作为综合，计算密集型和跨学科研究的先驱，定义了21世纪的新生物学。其未来的方法依赖于经过5年实验和测试开发的经过严格审查和建立的合成方法。活动的重点是发展一个社会环境综合实践社区。与传统黑人学院和大学的新伙伴关系将建立讲习班、协作综合项目和同侪师生网络，以促进思想交流，提供智力和道德支持，并促进获得专业发展和研究机会。一个新的博士后项目专注于“沉浸式”，以加速综合跨学科研究项目的发展。研究员将首先在他们自己的学科中发起一个项目，然后通过讲座和讲习班迅速沉浸在相关学科的理论和实践中。研究生将在职业生涯早期指导自己的综合工作小组发展协作和沟通技能。跟踪参与者的各种努力将使他们在离开SESYNC后继续参与社会环境综合。一个新的网络基础设施项目，数据激励综合，将使用便利的数据发现和团队科学研讨会，在社会科学和自然科学的界面上制定研究问题。与乔治城大学环境倡议的新合作将加强SESYNC的“可操作”奖学金组合，并进一步扩大社会环境综合的参与。两所机构将共同支持四名博士后进行科学与政策联系的综合研究。所有活动的成功将通过形成性和总结性评估来衡量既定目标和里程碑。

Equitable, ethical, and sustainable uses of the Earth's finite resources require an understanding of how human behaviors affect and respond to the environment. The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) facilitates novel research across the natural and social sciences to achieve this understanding and to provide the knowledge needed to address complex problems challenging human societies globally. The Center will develop education and training activities to build capacity across all career stages to solve complex problems and to develop a new generation of researchers skilled in collaboration and communication. These activities will emphasize the relevance of socio-environmental synthesis to real world problems by including policy-makers, governmental agencies, and non-governmental agencies in all activities, ensuring that these knowledge users obtain the information they need to make sound decisions. New investments will train thought leaders, educators, and decision-makers of the future. Building capacity extends to increased involvement of under-served groups in solving societal problems. Partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, coupled with active mentoring of their undergraduates and faculty, will engage these communities in environmental challenges that have significant cultural, economic, and social implications. Center activities will build computational literacy and provide publicly-available analytical tools that will advance computational training far beyond SESYNC's participants. Through a suite of new activities, SESYNC will build capacity to find solutions to pressing societal challenges. SESYNC has established itself as a pioneer in the integrative, computationally intensive, and trans-disciplinary research that defines a new biology for the 21st century. Its approach for the future relies on a firmly vetted and established approach to synthesis developed over 5 years of experiment and testing. Activities focus on developing a community of practice for socio-environmental synthesis. New partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities will establish workshops, collaborative synthesis projects, and a peer faculty-student network to foster exchange of ideas, provide intellectual and moral support, and facilitate access to professional development and research opportunities. A new postdoctoral program focuses on 'immersion' to accelerate development of integrated, inter-disciplinary research projects. Fellows will first initiate a project in their own discipline and then be quickly immersed, through lectures and workshops, in the theory and practice of related disciplines. Graduate students will direct their own synthesis working groups to develop skills in collaboration and communication early in their careers. Diverse efforts to track participants will sustain their involvement in socio-environmental synthesis after leaving SESYNC. A new cyberinfrastructure program, Data to Motivate Synthesis, will use facilitated data discovery and team science workshops to formulate research questions at the interface of social-natural sciences. A new collaboration with Georgetown University's Environmental Initiative will strengthen SESYNC's 'actionable' scholarship portfolio and further broaden participation in socio-environmental synthesis. The two institutions will co-support four postdoctoral fellows to conduct synthesis research on science-policy links. The success of all activities will be measured against established goals and milestones through formative and summative assessment.