Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Urban Agricultural Infratructure Systems

在21世纪，农业、技术、城市化、人口增长、社区文化和消费需求将结合在一起，为大规模生产营养安全的食品、创造就业机会、改善人类健康、资源管理、水处理和生产以及能源高效利用创造新的途径。新构建和改进的营养、能源、水和运输(Newt)系统将使城市地区的食品生产、加工和分配多样化、分散化、本地化和民主化，大多数人将居住在这些地区，Newt(和劳动力)资源随时可用，而且经常被浪费。由于减少用于粮食生产的Newt投入的协同效益，与它们将取代的产品相比，使用高科技和高陆地地区生产力控制的环境农业(CEA)系统可以在当地更好地种植一些商业食品。然而，要在商业规模上实现这一愿景，必须克服土木工程和环境工程、环境影响评价、城市规划、食品安全、健康和营养科学、供应链管理和消费者科学等领域的一系列挑战。需要进行工程研究中心规模的研究，以研究由技术驱动的新型优化CEA系统，该系统可以实现高区域食品生产率，以低运营成本和减少能源和水消耗来提高城市地区的食品和营养安全。这笔规划拨款将有助于建立一个多元化的研究、教育和创新团队，以确定和培养有效管理团队科学工作并熟练掌握管理大型研究中心的最佳实践的领导者。该小组将开发和实践有效的手段，在学科、地理和人口结构各异的合作伙伴之间开展包容性协作和决策。此外，规划拨款团队将共同制定一份为期10年的研究、教育和创新路线图，使城市农业基础设施系统的愿景得以实现。为了实现这些目标，规划赠款小组将开展一系列领导人建设活动、多样性和包容性培训以及科学交流活动。这些活动将帮助所有参与者成为更有效的领导者，更好地管理和管理研究资源，清楚地传达复杂的科学和工程现象，成为不同研究团队的熟练建设者，以及知识渊博和适应能力强的团队科学实践者。虽然研究人员通常是根据他们的研究专长被选入团队的，但大多数人没有接受过领导力、团队科学、多样性和包容性、科学沟通和其他基础技能方面的正式培训。这些都是大型研究团队要想取得成功所需要的关键技能。通过分享经验，参与者还将发展多代人和指导关系。该团队及其通过这笔赠款招募的不同合作伙伴将开始确定共同的价值观，未来的城市农业基础设施系统将建立在这些价值观的基础上。这将需要团队考虑多个目标和视角，并制定未来10年的路线图，描述需要做的工作：1)揭示城市基础设施系统和粮食生产农业系统之间的相互联系、相互依赖和协同作用；2)与行业和政府合作，为城市农业在商品规模上的成功创造技术、政策、计划和市场；3)开发和测试法律、规则、标准和最佳实践，以选址、设计、建设和运营可持续和有弹性的城市农业系统；4)发展工程城市农业系统的教学实践；5)招募和培训第一代工程师、科学家、设计师、经理和分析师，他们与他们将服务的社区一样多样化；以及6)在初创企业生态系统中促进农业技术创业，同时培训学生从事知识产权开发、社会创业和可持续技术转让。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。

In the 21st Century, agriculture, technology, urbanization, population growth, community culture, and consumer demand will come together to create new pathways for the large-scale production of nutritional and safe food, generation of jobs, improvement of human health, management of resources, treatment and production of water, and efficient use of energy. Newly-structured and improved nutrient, energy, water, and transportation (NEWT) systems will diversify, decentralize, localize, and democratize food production, processing, and distribution in urban areas where most people will live and where NEWT (and labor) resources are readily available and often wasted. Due to the synergistic benefits from reducing NEWT inputs for food production, some commercial food can be better grown locally using high-tech and high land-area productivity Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) systems compared to the products that they would displace. For this vision to be realized at commercial scale, however, a host of challenges must be overcome in the fields of civil and environmental engineering, CEA, urban planning, food safety, health and nutritional science, supply chain management, and consumer science. Research at the scale of an Engineering Research Center is needed to study novel optimized technology-driven CEA systems that can achieve high areal food productivity to increase the food and nutritional security in urban areas with low operating cost and reduced energy and water consumption. This planning grant will enable the building of a diverse research, education, and innovation team that identifies and develops leaders that are effective in managing team science efforts and skilled in the best practices for managing large research centers. This team will develop and practice effective means for inclusive collaboration and decision-making among disciplinary, geographically and demographically diverse partners. Additionally, the planning grant team will jointly develop a 10-year roadmap of research, education, and innovation that would enable the vision for urban agricultural infrastructure systems to be realized. To accomplish these goals, the planning grant team will conduct a series of leader-building activities, diversity and inclusion training, and science communications exercises. These activities will help all participants become more effective leaders, better administrators and stewards of research resources, articulate communicators of complex science and engineering phenomena, skilled builders of diverse research teams, and knowledgeable and adaptable practitioners of team science. While investigators are typically selected for teams based on their research expertise, most have received no formal training in leadership, team science, diversity and inclusion, scientific communication, and other underpinning skills. These are critical skills that large research teams need if they are to succeed. Through a shared experience, participants also will develop multi-generational and mentoring relationships.The team, and the diverse partners it will recruit through this grant, will begin identifying the shared values upon which future urban agricultural infrastructure systems will be built. This will require the team to consider multiple objectives and perspectives, and to develop a roadmap for the next 10 years that will describe the work that needs to done to 1) uncover the interconnections, interdependencies, and synergies among urban infrastructure systems and food producing agricultural systems; 2) work with industry and government to create the technologies, policies, programs, and markets for urban agriculture to succeed at the commodity scale; 3) develop and test the laws, rules, standards, and best practices for siting, designing, building, and operating sustainable and resilient urban agricultural systems; 4) develop the practice of teaching engineered urban agricultural systems; 5) recruit and train the first generation of engineers, scientists, designers, managers, and analysts, that are as diverse as the communities in which they will serve; and 6) foster agricultural technology entrepreneurship within a start-up ecosystem while training students to pursue intellectual property development, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable technology transfer.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.