Collaborative Research: GCR: Developing Integrated Agroecological Renewable Energy Systems through Convergent Research

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The deployment of renewable energy systems across landscapes in the U.S. - expected to advance the transition from national reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy - brings with it questions of competing land uses, effects on soil and water systems, and implications for local communities. This project advances the frontiers of science by forging a convergent research paradigm that not only deeply integrates disciplinary modes of thinking from otherwise siloed fields, but also incorporates the values, knowledge, and priorities of Indigenous communities, demonstrating the potential of communities underrepresented in STEM to contribute to convergent research that can address society’s most urgent problems. The project's convergent framework integrates Indigenous knowledge and priorities into a promising but nascent field that explores how wind and solar power can be embedded into agricultural systems. Participating disciplines include engineering, Native American studies, geography, and biology. This convergence research addresses food, energy and other environmental planning priorities through deep engagement with Indigenous communities in North America. Positioned to contribute to the nascent body of research on the integration of solar and wind energy into agricultural and other environmental systems, this project focuses on the co-design of integrated agroecological renewable systems (IARES) to emphasize the multifaceted goals that may be achieved beyond or in synergy with crop and energy production. To this end, the project 1) Demonstrates the potential of convergent research that involves significant community participation in research to shape the technologies guiding a renewable energy transition such to better serve groups underrepresented in scientific research; 2) Highlights the interconnectedness of socio-cultural, technical, and environmental systems; 3) Incorporates Indigenous communities as co-producers of the knowledge necessary to create integrated food-energy-water systems that build resilient soil systems and protect culturally significant ecosystem services, while providing insight into the nascent fields of agrivoltaics/agriwind, and 4) Advances an understanding of how convergent research can blend Indigenous and scientific knowledge, to develop paths towards environmentally and socially sustainable systems. The broader impacts include: 1) Transformative training opportunities for graduate students and PIs in community-based convergent research; 2) Deep engagement with historically marginalized groups that includes Indigenous community researchers in research on the principles of integrated agroecological renewable systems and positions their work to shape this emerging subfield; 3) Creation of communities of practice emerging from convergent research that integrate Indigenous community researchers and biophysical and social scientists; 4) Creation of “living labs,” in which the public, including Indigenous community members and regional leaders, can visit to learn about integrated agroecological renewable systems and convergent research processes in real time.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.