SRS-RN: Planning for a Network to Address Pressures, Responses and Sustainability Intersections across a Growing, Innovative, and Dry State

科罗拉多和美国西部许多干旱的州一样，面临着来自人口增长、技术创新、气候变化以及相互竞争的发展偏好和优先事项的重大可持续性挑战。这些挑战涉及本区域内相互连接的城市和农村地区。虽然科罗拉多的许多研究人员、从业人员和社区正在努力了解和解决这些挑战，但这些努力是分散的。解决区域可持续性挑战需要一种方法，将区域理解为自然、建筑、社会、公共和政府网络的嵌套层。该规划补助金的目的是提高在研究的所有阶段在公共，私人和非营利部门共享知识，资源和数据的能力，从而在科罗拉多建立一个更具可持续性的区域系统。一个强大的，连接和协调的跨部门（大学，政府，行业，非营利组织）和跨学科的网络是必要的，以提高团体的能力已经在科罗拉多的可持续发展挑战的工作。在12个月的规划期内，该网络将使用调查工具，以更好地了解连通性，协作，多样性，包容性，感知的机会，障碍，以及在现有网络中整个科罗拉多正在进行的可持续发展工作的范围。第二步是举办研讨会，重点是了解过去和当前的可持续发展活动，确定哪些压力对不同社区最重要，以及这些问题如何在不同的空间尺度上定义关系。跨部门、跨学科研讨会的目标是：1）扩大现有的网络联系，纳入更多社区和少数族裔服务机构; 2）在不同的利益相关者之间建立知识和信任; 3）制定一套研究目标、方法和范围，以开发第1轨可持续区域系统研究网络（SRS-RN）提案。最后，研究人员将进行网络和经济分析，旨在评估全州资源和联系的广泛不平等，以更好地了解各个社区的障碍和不平等。网络分析还将研究跨学科联系或缺乏联系如何阻碍跨学科研究议程的发展。研讨会和分析将使科学研究人员和社区集中进行对话，以确定突破这些障碍所需的必要社会和技术平台，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估来支持审查标准。

Colorado, like many dry states in the western U.S., faces significant sustainability challenges from population growth, technological innovation, climate change, and competing development preferences and priorities. These challenges span the connected urban and rural areas within the region. While many researchers, practitioners, and communities in Colorado are working to understand and address these challenges, efforts are fragmented. Solving regional sustainability challenges requires an approach that understands regions as nested layers of natural, built, social, public, and government networks. The aim of this planning grant is to improve the ability to share knowledge, resources, and data across the public, private, and non-profit sectors in all phases of the research, leading to a more sustainable and regional system in Colorado. A strong, connected, and coordinated cross-sector (university, government, industry, non-profit), and transdisciplinary network is needed to improve the capacity of groups already working on sustainability challenges in Colorado. During the twelve-month planning period, the network will use a survey instrument to better understand the connectivity, collaboration, diversity, inclusivity, perceived opportunities, barriers, and the range of sustainability work being done across Colorado in the existing network. The second step will be to host workshops focused on understanding past and current sustainability activities, identifying which pressures are most important to different communities, and how these issues define relationships at various spatial scales. The cross-sector, interdisciplinary workshops aims to 1) expand existing network ties to include additional communities and minority serving institutions; 2) build knowledge and trust across diverse stakeholders; and 3) formulate a set of research objectives, methods, and scope for the development of a Track 1 Sustainable Regional Systems Research Networks (SRS-RN) proposal. Finally, researchers will conduct network and economic analyses designed to assess broad inequalities in resources and connections across the state to better understand barriers and inequities across various communities. Network analyses will also examine how connections across disciplines, or lack thereof, are impeding development of a transdisciplinary research agenda The workshops and analyses will focus scientific researchers and communities in conversations meant to identify the necessary social and technical platforms needed to break through these barriers, and to strengthen and empower the network.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.