NSF Engines: Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine

NSF Engines：西南可持续创新引擎

• 批准号: 2315479
• 负责人: Peter Schlosser
• 金额: $ 1500万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-03-01 至 2026-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2315479&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Engines; Southwest; Sustainability; Innovation

This NSF Engines award to the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine will advance US innovation capacity in three interrelated areas of sustainability: (1) water security, (2) renewable energy, and (3) net carbon emissions. The Southwest (SW) region of the U.S. is changing rapidly, and like many regions around the world, is experiencing increasingly harsh climate conditions—with wide-ranging impacts, from extreme weather events that damage infrastructure and pose serious health risks to increasing water and energy insecurity that threaten economic prosperity. The SW region comprising Utah, Nevada, and Arizona is especially vulnerable due to extreme aridity and heat coupled with rapid population growth (the 2020 U.S. Census shows that Utah, Nevada, and Arizona are first, fourth, and fifth, respectively, for population growth during the period from 2010 to 2020). In fact, as rapid growth increasingly conflicts with severe water shortages, the economic development of the SW is reaching a critical threshold. For example, Phoenix presently experiences temperatures approaching 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and like surrounding cities, is frequently impacted by extreme weather, drought, and wildfires. Within the next 10 years, temperatures will rise to more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit and drought conditions will be more severe. Such conditions if unabated will threaten the vitality, livability, and economic future of the SW. In addition to its focus on technical innovations, the NSF Engine will also focus on sustainability innovations in policy and governance. If successful, the NSF Engine will transform the SW region into a national innovation hub, leading not only to positive climate impacts, but also to high wage jobs, economic growth, and technology-based startups and venture capital investments. In pursuit of this vision, the NSF Engine will (1) serve as catalyst to connect and institutionalize a distributed regional sustainability innovation ecosystem – industry, researchers, innovators, investors, decision-makers, and community leaders; (2) incentivize co-innovations in technology and governance to overcome limitations to community and economic development and facilitate just and equitable water and energy futures; (3) expand infrastructure and capacity for inclusive knowledge translation through startups and intellectual property licensing, enabling continued and sustainable economic and population growth; and (4) prepare a diverse and highly skilled sustainability innovation workforce that creates new businesses, meets the needs of existing employers, and provides inclusive access to high-wage STEM jobs by leveraging innovations in education and training at scale.The NSF Engine has a region of service spanning three states—Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The scale of the challenges in the American southwest demands a coordinated approach across state boundaries. The collapse of the Colorado River water allocations and the failing energy grid system are prime examples of traditional uncoordinated approaches. The NSF Engine aims to cross disciplinary and sector boundaries to bring teams of engineers and physical scientists together with experts in policy and governance to co-innovate technology, as well as new regulatory, policy, governance, and market-based approaches for implementing technology across cities and states. The NSF Engine has an extensive network of core partners and regional stakeholders, spanning for-profit industry, entrepreneurs, state and local government, and workforce and economic development partners, with mature ties to active water-energy-carbon co-innovation, translation of innovation to practice, workforce development, and community and economic growth.Informed by the current state of practice and major gaps identified by the regional ecosystem of partners, the NSF Engine will focus on three strategic priorities during the first two years of the award period—renewable energy, water capture and recycling, and carbon capture. To ensure solutions that collectively address technical, governance and policy, market, and industry demands, the NSF Engine’s organizational structure includes a governing board, external advisory board, and interrelated working groups, comprising an extensive network of public and private partners. In addition to a slate of projects already identified and ready for investment, new use-inspired R&D and translation projects will be supported through grant competitions.With respect to translation of innovations to practice, the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine’s overarching goal focuses on expanding inclusive and rapid access to knowledge translation, getting technology and governance innovations rapidly to market and practice, and connecting currently distributed resources, expertise, and programs for translation into a community of practice. To achieve its goal, the NSF Engine will support several interrelated translation support efforts: (1) translation training—the Engine will develop and facility training in translation for participants in co-innovation R&D; (2) incubators and tech transfer hubs—the Engine will formalize partnerships with Incubators to support startup formation from both university- and community-based Engine R&D and innovations; (3) venture capital (VC)—the NSF Engine will develop pathways to access VC investments in year one, through existing partners such as StartupNV and university-based funds; starting in year two, the NSF Engine will host investor pitch events bi-annually; and (4) Communities of practice—the NSF Engine will extend collaborative communities of practice to build relationships and align programs across currently decentralized networks to accelerate translation opportunities.The NSF Engine has engaged state and local economic and workforce development organizations, industry, and community and technical colleges that will help address workforce gaps with a portfolio of entrepreneurship, career technical, and upskilling workforce programs aligned with NSF Engine partners and designed specifically to be inclusive of underserved populations to build generational wealth in historically excluded communities. Specific activities will focus on sustainability innovation education for K-12 students; leveraging sustainability innovation career discovery technology platforms that connect jobseekers to education partners, certificate programs, and fast-track training to build skills needed to advance careers; the creation of the Sustainability Entrepreneurship and Innovations Certificate program, which will prepare budding entrepreneurs to accelerate ideas through startup methods focused on innovations in carbon capture and water and energy security; supporting entrepreneurs via executive-level internships; and developing a full pipeline of workers via technical and university pathways.The NSF Engine has brought together a strong coalition of partners and stakeholders and has demonstrated a strong alignment with regional assets, investments, and priorities. The NSF Engine has identified critical R&D topic areas that must be advanced to drive sustainability innovations in water-energy-carbon co-innovation. It will support R&D, translation of innovation, and workforce development activities to cultivate a thriving regional innovation ecosystem of tech companies, researchers, innovators, investors, decision-makers, and community and industry leaders, that will transform the southwest into a national hub for innovation. The Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine will drive economic growth through job creation and training opportunities in the sustainability sector, particularly for historically underserved and/or rural communities, across the southwest region of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.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.