Collaborative Research: Implementation Grant: Active Societal Participation In Research and Education

积极社会参与研究和教育(ASPIRE)计划旨在通过支持和鼓励由科学家和社区成员共同管理的地球科学研究，扩大参与应对具有挑战性的环境和气候变化问题的场所和人员。ASPIRE的愿景是支持以地点为基础、以社区为基础的工作，同时吸引、招聘和留住更多地球科学领域的早期职业科学家，并加强公众对地球科学的信任，以解决威胁我们世界的地区性和全球性环境问题。ASPIRE认识到，这些问题的紧迫性意味着，培养地球科学领袖的工作必须伴随着与资源不足的社区进行有意义和公平的交流，这些社区往往被排除在环境研究和解决方案之外。目标是改变学术文化，以支持这些努力的方式，通过建立一个学习生态系统，让早期职业科学家(路径制定者)和社区成员参与分阶段课程，1)提供虚拟讨论系列，对大量参与者产生广泛影响，2)为早期职业科学家提供身临其境的研究所，让他们亲自参与和社区进行关于道德和公平最佳实践的培训，3)为这些新领导人提供财政和辅导支持，以便在公平交流工作组中开展共同制作的研究，4)将创新孵化器中担任行政领导角色的改革者联系起来，以追求广泛的政策变化；5)为参与者培养一个实践社区，让他们相互成长和共同学习。科学界有一种有据可查的趋势，即忽视非主导社区的经验、知识、观点和优先事项。ASPIRE计划概述了地球科学转型的机制，该机制扭转了对非主导优先事项的制度性折扣，并支持和提升基于资产的社区文化资本框架。该项目继续努力了解地球科学边界扳手，他们“涉足主流地球科学和社区的两个世界”。该项目追求一种变革理论，即以地点为基础、以社区为基础的研究，与边界扳手共同制作，成为地球科学和社区合作中文化变革的催化剂。研究问题考察了有助于将领导理论应用于跨国界工作的核心领导能力，并确定了两个队列的路径制造者和改变者模型如何积极参与主流科学中的权力结构，以实现有意义的制度变革。这项工作将提高地学在边缘化社区中的知名度和相关应用，并最终帮助增加在STEM中历史上代表性不足的地方和人民的参与。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Active Societal Participation In Research and Education (ASPIRE) program seeks to expand the places and people involved in meeting challenging environmental and climate change issues through supporting and encouraging geoscience research co-managed by scientists and community members. The vision of ASPIRE is that supporting place-based, community-based work will simultaneously attract, recruit, and retain a wider diversity of early career scientists in Geoscience, as well as strengthen public trust in Geoscience to address the local-to-global environmental issues threatening our world. ASPIRE recognizes that the urgency of these issues means work to develop geoscientist leaders must be accompanied by meaningful and equitable exchange with under-resourced communities that have often been left out of environmental research and solutions. The goal is to shift academic cultures in ways that can support these efforts by developing a learning ecosystem that engages early career scientists (Pathmakers) and community members in a phased curriculum that 1) offers a virtual discussion series to have broad impact for a large number of participants, 2) offers immersive institutes for early career scientists to participate in person and in community for training around ethical and equitable best practices, 3) provides support both financially and through mentoring for these new leaders to carry out co-produced research in equitable exchange working groups, 4) connects Changemakers from administrative leadership roles in an innovation incubator to pursue broad policy change and 5) cultivates a community of practice for participants to grow and communally learn from one another.There is a documented tendency in the sciences to discount the experiences, knowledges, perspectives and priorities of non-dominant communities. The ASPIRE program outlines a mechanism for transformation of the Geosciences that reverses institutional discounting of non-dominant priorities, and supports and elevates asset-based framing of community cultural capital. This project continues work to understand geoscience boundary spanners who “have a foot in both worlds” of mainstream geoscience and community. The project pursues a theory of change that place-based, community-based research, co-produced with boundary spanners, becomes a catalyst for cultural transformation in both the Geosciences and in community collaborations. Research questions examine the core leadership competencies that contribute to the application of leadership theory to boundary spanning work, and determine how a two-cohort Pathmaker and Changemaker model can actively engage power structures in mainstream science to effect meaningful institutional change. This work will raise the visibility and relevant application of the geosciences within marginalized communities and ultimately help increase participation from places and peoples that have been historically underrepresented in STEM.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.