Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for In-Situ Control of the Nitrogen Cycle (In-SINC)

工程研究中心规划拨款竞赛是ERC项目的试点征集。规划补助金不需要作为ERC竞赛的一部分，但它旨在在团队之间建立能力，以规划聚合的、中心规模的工程研究。这项规划拨款将为未来的氮循环原位控制工程研究中心制定完善的计划。该项目结合了工程、化学、数据科学和分析、环境科学以及社会和政策科学方面的专业知识，并建立了一个灵活而强大的流程来识别和吸引利益相关者。这些利益相关者横跨学术界、工业界和政府，并将在规划拨款中合作，在四个主要重点中确定融合的研究主题：(1)分布式肥料制造；(2)氮肥的有效和控制应用；(3)肥料回收；(4)作为社会生态系统的氮循环。这些主题的发展为21世纪粮食供应的可持续“闭环方法”提供了一个平台，在这个平台上，氮肥在施用地点或附近得到有效的生产、施用和回收。在规划过程的初始阶段，从核心团队和利益相关者收集的信息将在四个重点领域的每一个领域内发展成一套正式的技术目标。该项目有可能推进在分布式小规模氨生产、氮流的可用性和应用模型、土壤和水化学知识以及氮基环境效应方面的知识，并加深对技术与社会生态系统界面的理解。拟议的计划建立了应对这些挑战所需的必要的融合方法，同时将重点缩小到与肥料效率低下有关的挑战，以及基于工程的方法和采用。该计划带来了广泛的专业知识，包括将技术努力与社会影响联系起来所需的专业知识，建立融合研究主题，并制定适当的指标来衡量这些主题的进展。发达国家氮肥的过度生产和施用造成了广泛的有害环境影响，而发展中国家的农业却面临着生物可利用氮缺乏的问题。规划拨款催化解决与化肥生产、应用和回收相关的挑战，并额外关注监管和经济因素，最终将工程创新与社会影响联系起来。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research. This planning grant will develop well-formulated plans for a future Engineering Research Center for In-Situ Control of the Nitrogen Cycle. The program combines expertise in engineering, chemistry, data science and analytics, environmental science, and social and policy science, and establishes a flexible and robust process to identify and engage stakeholders. These stakeholders span academia, industry, and government, and will collaborate in the planning grant to define convergent research themes within four primary thrusts: (1) distributed fertilizer manufacturing, (2) efficient and controlled application of nitrogen fertilizer, (3) fertilizer recycling, and (4) nitrogen cycles as social-ecological systems. Development within these themes provides a platform for a sustainable "closed loop approach" for 21st century food supply, where nitrogenous fertilizers are efficiently produced, applied, and recycled at or near the site of application. Information gathered from the core team and stakeholders during the initial stages of the planning process will be developed into a formal set of technical goals within each of the four thrust areas.This project has the potential to advance knowledge in the distributed small-scale ammonia production, the availability of nitrogen flow and application models, knowledge of soil and water chemistry and nitrogen-based environmental effects, and achieving a heightened understanding of the interface of technologies with socio-ecological systems. The proposed program establishes the necessary convergence approach required to address these challenges, while narrowing focus to challenges related to fertilizer inefficiencies, and to engineering-based approaches and adoption. The program brings broad expertise, including expertise required to link technology efforts with societal impact, establishes convergence research themes, and develops metrics appropriate for measuring progress towards these themes. Over-production and application of nitrogen fertilizer in the developed world is responsible for a broad range of deleterious environmental effects, even while agriculture in the developing world suffers from a lack of bioavailable nitrogen. The planning grant catalyzes a process to solve challenges related to fertilizer production, application, and recycling, with additional focus on the regulatory and economic factors that ultimately connect engineering innovation with societal impact.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.