Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Cognitive NeuroEngineering

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。圣何塞州立大学和加州大学戴维斯分校正在与劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室合作，计划建立一个潜在的认知神经工程工程研究中心。认知神经工程是人类与机器互动进化的下一步。今天，机器正准备实现这一重要的飞跃：从使用视觉、触觉和声音与我们的外围神经系统连接，到直接与我们的中枢神经系统连接，从而迎来一个世界，在这个世界里，每个人都可以通过思考他们想要做什么来控制计算机、家用机器和其他辅助设备。是在我们国家吗？我有兴趣站在这个新的工程学科的前沿，并解决直接将机器与中枢神经系统连接在一起的认知影响。为了促进科学的进步，确保国家的健康，繁荣和福利，我们将发展一个多元化的团队，能够有效地履行拟议的ERC的使命，并创建一个有最大机会产生社会经济影响的中心。为了实现这一目标，该项目将涉及广泛的利益相关者，从科学家和工程师到临床医生和最终用户，以改善这些社区之间更好的理解和信任的机会。此外，每个社区带来的专业知识将被用来建立协同合作伙伴关系，推动这一新领域的科学、教育和伦理方面的发展。将对国家劳动力发展和监管环境的任何变化提出建议。这项提议有三个主要的预期好处。首先是优化利益相关者群体的多样性，以最大限度地提高认知神经工程这一新领域的潜在社会效益。第二是改进团队动力，使利益相关者能够在不考虑地位和权力差异的情况下做出贡献。第三是通过在团队科学中利用基于证据的研究来实现更有效的领导。正如人因工程已经发展成为认知工程一样，认知神经工程超越了当前的神经假肢应用，并解决了直接将机器与中枢神经系统连接在一起的认知影响。这种潜在的ERC代表了人类技术前沿未来工作中最重要的新挑战之一。使用基于团队的科学，该ERC将采用融合研究，并解决与中枢神经系统接口的复杂性及其对认知的影响。新的数据分析方法将被开发，对人类认知的更深入的理解将被实现，创新的神经技术将被创造出来，有望影响社会，超出拟议的ERC的目标。为了在认知神经工程中发展拟议的ERC，该计划拨款将用于：1)举办一系列计划会议，最终以三个研讨会告终；2)在合作机构之间和相关利益相关者社区之间进行旅行，以交换合作伙伴资源的第一手资料；3)在战略规划中聘请一名专业促进者，以及两名专家，一位是融合科学专家，另一位是团队科学专家。三个工作坊围绕我们的四个目标展开。第一个目标是确定我们ERC的优势和劣势。第二个目标是确定部署我们提议的工程系统的机会和多样性的机会。第三个目标是利用团队科学的最新技术，充分发展团队和利益相关者社区，包括提高我们表达社会影响的能力。第四个目标是撰写ERC提案。这项规划补助金将对我们的ERC制定一套战略目标和指标产生最大的影响。这将使我们能够仔细考虑和更深入地了解我们的伦理委员会的社会影响。因为当群体认同项目的社会影响时，他们更有可能参与进来，这将提高干系人的参与。此外，这些活动有望发展新的思维方式，以缓解利益相关者之间的重大沟通和哲学差异，并促进具有重大沟通和哲学差异的ERC的跨学科性质。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.San Jose State University and University of California, Davis are partnering with Lawrence Livermore National Labs to plan for a potential Engineering Research Center in Cognitive Neuroengineering. Cognitive NeuroEngineering is the next step in the evolution of human interactions with machines. Today, machines are poised to make this important leap: from interfacing with our peripheral nervous system using sight, touch, and sound to interfacing directly with our central nervous system to usher in a world in which everyone will command computers, household machines and other assistive devices simply by thinking about what they want to do. It is in our nation?s interest to be at the forefront of this new engineering discipline and to addresses the cognitive implications of directly interfacing machines with the central nervous system. To promote the progress of science and ensure the nation's health, prosperity and welfare we will develop a diverse team that can effectively address the mission of the proposed ERC and create a Center that has the greatest opportunity for socioeconomic impact. To accomplish this, this project will engage a broad range of stakeholders, from scientist and engineers to clinicians and end-users to improve opportunities for better understanding and trust between these communities. In addition, the specialized knowledge that each community brings will be leveraged to create synergistic partnerships that advances the scientific, educational, and ethical aspects of this new field. Recommendations for national workforce development and any changes to our regulatory environment will be made. There are three major expected benefits of this proposal. The first is to optimize diversity of the stakeholder community to maximize the potential societal benefit of this new field of Cogntive Neuroengineering. The second is improved team dynamics to empower stakeholders to contribute regardless of status and power differences. The third is more effective leadership by utilizing evidence based research in team science.Just as Human Factors Engineering has grown into Cognitive Engineering, Cognitive NeuroEngineering goes beyond current neuroprosthetic applications and addresses the cognitive implications of directly interfacing machines with the central nervous system. This potential ERC represents one of the most important new challenges of the future of work at the human-technology frontier. Using team-based science, this ERC will embrace convergent research and address the complexity of interfacing with the central nervous system and its impact on cognition. Novel data analytic approaches will be developed, a greater understanding of human cognition will be achieved and innovative neurotechnologies will be created that are expected to impact society beyond the goals of the proposed ERC. To develop the proposed ERC in Cognitive Neuroengineering, this planning grant will be used to 1) enable a series of planning meetings that culminate in three workshops, 2) travel between the partner institutions and to relevant stakeholder communities for first hand exchanges of partner resources and 3) engage a profession facilitator in strategic planning as well as two experts, one in convergent science and the other in the team science. The three workshops revolve around our four Objectives. The first Objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses of our ERC. The second Objective is to identify opportunities for deployment of our proposed engineering system and opportunities for diversity. The third Objective is to fully develop the team and stakeholder community using the latest techniques of team science, including improving our ability to articulate the societal impacts. The fourth Objective is to write the ERC proposal. This planning grant will have the greatest impact on the formulation of a set of strategic objectives and metrics for our ERC. This will allow us to consider carefully and more deeply understand the societal impact of our ERC. Since groups are more likely to engage when they identify with the societal impact of a project, this will improve stakeholder engagement. In addition, the activities are expected to develop new ways of thinking to ease the significant communication and philosophical difference among stakeholders and facilitate the transdisciplinary nature of the ERC whose constituents have significant communication and philosophical differences.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.