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

工程研究中心规划奖助金竞赛是作为ERC计划的试点征集活动进行的。计划拨款并不是整个ERC竞赛的一部分，而是为了在团队之间建立能力，以计划集中的、中心规模的工程研究。这笔规划赠款将为未来的氮循环现场控制工程研究中心制定精心制定的计划。该计划结合了工程、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稳健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，在四个主要主题内确定共同的研究主题：(1)分布式化肥制造，(2)高效和可控的氮肥使用，(3)化肥回收，以及(4)作为社会生态系统的氮循环。这些主题的发展为21世纪的粮食供应提供了一个可持续的“闭环方法”的平台，在这种方法中，氮肥在施肥地或附近高效地生产、应用和回收利用。在规划进程的初始阶段从核心小组和利益攸关方收集的信息将被发展成四个主要领域中每一个领域的一套正式的技术目标。该项目有可能增进关于分布式小规模氨生产、氮气流动和应用模型的可用性、土壤和水化学以及氮基环境影响的知识，并加深对技术与社会生态系统的接口的理解。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化肥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，并制定适当的衡量这些主题进展的指标。尽管发展中国家的农业缺乏生物有效氮，但发达国家的氮肥过度生产和使用造成了广泛的有害环境影响。规划拨款促进了一个解决与化肥生产、应用和回收相关的挑战的过程，并进一步关注了最终将工程创新与社会影响联系起来的监管和经济因素。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.