NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing equitable access to food and health techologies in the Delta (AR, LA, MS)

NSF 引擎发展奖：促进三角洲地区（阿肯色州、洛杉矶、密苏里州）公平获取食品和健康技术

• 批准号: 2304299
• 负责人: Joseph Thompson
• 金额: $ 100万
• 依托单位: University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2304299&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Engines; Development; Award; Advancing

This NSF Engines Development Award will lay the groundwork for a future NSF Engine in the lower Mississippi River Delta to develop a regional workforce of diverse technicians, practitioners, researchers, and entrepreneurs; initiate the creation of new companies and associated economic opportunities that emanate from them; translate discoveries and new technologies developed in and across academic environments and private sector initiatives to the market; and achieve better and more equitable health and economic outcomes across a region with disparities that are longstanding and disproportionately shared by low-income communities and communities of color across the nation. Led by the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, this project includes diverse regional stakeholders representing ten academic research institutions, seven for-profit companies, various state government agencies, seventeen nonprofits, and two minority-owned community development finance institutions. This planning effort will build upon previous federal investments in the region in basic and applied research in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, smart agriculture, biomedical informatics, and data analytics. It will build strategic partnerships across state lines co-creating a regional ecosystem that supports improved health and economic outcomes for all residents, many of whom are on society's geographic, political, and economic fringes. The vision for the eventual NSF Engine is an innovative incubator of novel solutions to achieve equitable health and economic outcomes for the residents of the proposed region and beyond. Based upon the documented basic needs of the region’s population for food and health care, combined with the challenges and successful responses from the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity is ripe for use-inspired research and development of innovative and entrepreneurial rural solutions that will not only address the targeted region but also offer potential solutions for other rural areas of the nation. The eventual Engine will revolve around new delivery models for healthy food, technology-assisted diagnosis, monitoring and prevention and treatment for chronic diseases, and non-traditional diagnostic and pharmacologic therapeutics, focusing on innovations, advancements, and infrastructures that improve health care for under-served populations. Successful translation of these innovations into practice will require workforce development and new financing models for entrepreneurial success tailored for rural communities. Successful development of the ecosystem will require focused efforts to overcome historical marginalization and discrimination of certain communities and the development of local intellectual assets for sustainable growth.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.

该NSF发动机开发奖将为密西西比河下游三角洲未来的NSF发动机奠定基础，以开发由不同技术人员，从业人员，研究人员和企业家组成的区域劳动力;启动新公司的创建以及由此产生的相关经济机会;将学术环境和私营部门倡议中开发的发现和新技术转化为市场;并在一个长期存在差距的地区实现更好和更公平的健康和经济成果，这些差距由全国各地的低收入社区和有色人种社区不成比例地分享。该项目由阿肯色州健康改善中心牵头，包括代表10个学术研究机构、7个营利性公司、各州政府机构、17个非营利组织和2个少数民族社区发展金融机构的不同区域利益相关者。这一规划工作将建立在该地区以前在人工智能、生物技术、智能农业、生物医学信息学和数据分析等基础和应用研究方面的联邦投资的基础上。它将建立跨州的战略伙伴关系，共同创造一个区域生态系统，支持改善所有居民的健康和经济成果，其中许多人处于社会的地理，政治和经济边缘。最终NSF Engine的愿景是一个创新解决方案的创新孵化器，为拟议地区及其他地区的居民实现公平的健康和经济成果。 根据该地区人口对食品和医疗保健的记录基本需求，再加上COVID-19大流行带来的挑战和成功应对，以使用为导向的创新和创业农村解决方案的研究和开发机会已经成熟，不仅可以解决目标地区，还可以为全国其他农村地区提供潜在的解决方案。最终的引擎将围绕健康食品、技术辅助诊断、监测、预防和治疗慢性病以及非传统诊断和药物治疗的新交付模式，重点关注创新、进步和基础设施，以改善服务不足人群的医疗保健。要成功地将这些创新转化为实践，就需要发展劳动力，并建立适合农村社区的创业成功新融资模式。生态系统的成功发展需要集中精力克服历史上对某些社区的边缘化和歧视，并为可持续发展开发当地的知识资产。该奖项反映了NSF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。