NSF Convergence Accelerator: Re-Think Nature for Innovative Solutions to Grand Challenges

该赠款为题为“NSF融合加速器：为重大挑战的创新解决方案重新思考自然”的研讨会提供资金支持，该研讨会将于2020年秋季虚拟举行。研讨会将汇集并扩大来自学术界、工业界和政府的主要利益相关者之间的合作，通过利用自然灵感的解决方案，探索人类和地球未来的重大挑战。研讨会将重点关注三个领域：(1)基于自然的石油基塑料解决方案，(2)基于天然材料的清洁水解决方案，以及(3)可持续基础设施的先进材料。本次研讨会将通过综合不同知识领域的新思想、新方法和新技术，探索可持续和自然丰富的材料，以实现科学突破和卓越创新，最终目标是寻求应对重大挑战的创新解决方案。通过成功整合化学、材料科学、工程、数据科学、植物科学和公共政策等不同学科，提出的融合方法有望在自然丰富的资源中实现前沿发现，并在自然材料的可持续利用方面实现前所未有的创新，以实现广泛的潜在应用。例如，新发现的木源材料的特性可以用于更可持续的，在许多情况下，可以用于直接影响社会的产品和工艺的优质材料，这是为人类和地球重新思考自然灵感解决方案的一个很好的例子。虽然存在巨大的研究可能性，但这些机会的核心是使用启发的融合和建立伙伴关系，以将发现转化为实践。本次研讨会的目的是回顾最近的进展，并确定新的方向和机会成熟的收敛研究。这笔赠款将用于讲习班的网络托管服务，以及组织讲习班和编写报告的人员支持。在这个虚拟研讨会上，受邀的来自学术界、政府和行业的不同学科专业知识的领导者、研究人员、创新者和利益相关者将讨论当前和未来的挑战和机遇，这些挑战和机遇与自然启发的解决方案有关，以应对重大挑战。研讨会将由三部分组成，包括邀请演讲、闪电演讲、分组讨论和主持讨论的混合形式。这种形式旨在促进围绕每个主题中最重要的技术挑战和未来融合研究的机会进行头脑风暴讨论。本次研讨会还将以小组讨论为特色，将整合三个会议的主题和讨论。这些演讲和讨论的结果将被记录在最终报告中，并将在学术界、政府和工业界广泛传播。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。

This grant provides financial support for the workshop entitled, "NSF Convergence Accelerator: Re-think Nature for Innovative Solutions to Grand Challenges", to be held virtually in the Fall 2020. The workshop will bring together and expand collaboration among key stakeholders from academia, industry, and government with the charge of exploring grand challenges for the future of humanity and planet by leveraging nature-inspired solutions. The workshop will focus on three areas: (1) nature-inspired solutions to petroleum-based plastics, (2) natural material-based solutions to clean water, and (3) advanced materials for sustainable infrastructure. The proposed workshop will explore sustainable and nature-abundant materials by synthesizing new ideas, approaches, and technologies from diverse fields of knowledge to achieve scientific breakthroughs and exceptional innovation, with the ultimate goal to seek innovative solutions to grand challenges. By successfully integrating diverse disciplines in chemistry, materials science, engineering, data sciences, plant science, and public policy, the proposed convergence approach is poised to achieve cutting-edge discoveries in nature-abundant resources and unprecedented innovation in sustainable utilization of natural materials toward a wide range of potential applications. For example, newly discovered properties of wood-sourced materials could be exploited for more sustainable and in many cases superior materials for products and processes that directly impact society, which is an excellent example of re-thinking nature-inspired solutions for humans and the planet. While tremendous research possibilities exist, center to these opportunities is use-inspired convergence and building partnerships to transition discoveries into practice. The objective of this workshop is to review the recent progress and identify new directions and opportunities ripe for convergence research. Funding from this grant will go towards web hosting services for the workshop, and personnel support for organizing the workshop as well as the production of a report. In this virtual workshop, invited leaders, researchers, innovators, and stake-holders with a diverse range of disciplinary expertise from across academia, government, and industry will discuss present and future challenges and opportunities for convergence related to nature-inspired solutions to grand challenges. The workshop will be comprised of three tracks, with a mixed format of invited talks, lightning talks, break out groups, and moderated discussions. The format is intended to foster brain-storming discussions around the most important technical challenges in each topic and opportunities for future convergence research. This workshop will also feature panel discussions that will integrate the topics and discussions from the three sessions. The outcome of these presentations and discussions will be documented in a final report and will be widely disseminated across academia, government, and industry.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.