US-Africa Workshop: Enhancing Collaborative Research on the Environment in SubSaharan Africa

该奖项支持一次PI会议/研讨会，以加强NSF资助的关于撒哈拉以南非洲(SSA)环境的合作研究。研讨会将汇集50-60名由NSF资助的在SSA地区工作的美国科学界成员、20名他们的非洲合作者、NSF资助SSA环境研究的各种项目的项目官员，以及来自支持SSA相关工作的其他机构和团体的代表。这次会议将是第一次以这种区域为重点的跨学科国际会议，由代表多个学科(如生态学、系统学、大气科学、地球科学、人类学、地理科学和环境工程学)的几个主管部门颁发奖项的跨部门主管机构参加。研讨会将以海报会议为特色，分享关于正在进行的活动、全体讲座和关于科学以及后勤/业务主题的工作组的信息。国际科学和工程办公室正在赞助这次研讨会，目的是通过促进和促进跨层级的多学科合作、综合和成果的综合，加强国家科学基金会在该地区的现有投资。研讨会还将汇集具有为SSA的美国学生提供研究经验的PI，从而提供关于如何提供更多和更好的此类机会的见解。参加会议的还有一群非洲科学家，他们与NSF Pi合作，从而提供有关补充非洲优势和利益的科学项目的信息。另一组参与者将是资助SSA相关工作的其他机构和基金会，增加利用NSF资金的可能性，特别是以加强非洲人力和物质能力建设的方式，从而加强相互的科学合作。研讨会的主要部分将是在国家科学基金会召开的为期三天的会议。讲习班参与者将努力确定协作科学研究机会和协同领域，包括智力和业务领域，确定与具体筹资机制相联系的具体伙伴关系，建议促进更有效合作的机制，并确定建立和维持研究网络的机制。一个工作组将重点讨论这一学者群体面临的通信和信息技术挑战。为了更有效地解决这一分主题，几位IT专家将在研讨会的最后一天加入主研讨会，并留在NSF，在第四天与部分参与者一起应对IT挑战。该小组将致力于建议加强沟通的方法，可能包括汇编研究/人员目录和书目，解决信息/数据管理问题，分享有关IT基础设施进步和机遇的信息，以及使用数字图书馆加强美国和非洲的国际科学研究和教育。讲习班的结果将以报告的形式在全球网络上以电子形式提供，并以光盘形式在非洲分发。

Semazzi 0444295This award supports a PI meeting/workshop for enhancing NSF-funded collaborative research on the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The workshop will bring together 50-60 members of the U.S. scientific community funded by NSF to work in the SSA region, 20 of their African collaborators, program officers from the various NSF programs that fund environmental research in SSA, and representatives from other agencies and groups that support related work in SSA. The meeting will be the first PI meeting to have such a regional focus and will be multidisciplinary, involving PIs with awards from several directorates representing multiple disciplines (e.g. ecology, systematics, atmospheric sciences, earth sciences, anthropology, geographic sciences, and environmental engineering). The workshop will feature poster sessions to share information about ongoing activities, plenary lectures, and working groups on scientific as well as logistical/operational themes. The Office of International Science and Engineering is sponsoring this workshop in order to strengthen NSF's existing investment in this region by promoting and facilitating multi-disciplinary collaboration, integration and synthesis of results across hierarchical levels. The workshop will also bring together PIs with experience in providing research experiences for US students in SSA, thus providing insight into how to provide more and better such opportunities. Also participating in the meeting will be a group of African scientists who collaborate with NSF PI's, thus providing information on the scientific projects that complement African strengths and interests. Another group of participants will be other agencies and foundations that fund related work in SSA, enhancing the likelihood of leveraging NSF funding, particularly in ways that strengthen human and physical capacity building in Africa and so strengthen the mutual scientific collaborations. The main part of the workshop will be a three-day meeting convened at NSF. The workshop participants will work to identify collaborative scientific research opportunities and areas of synergy, both intellectual and operational, identify specific partnerships linked with specific mechanisms for funding, recommend mechanisms for fostering more effective collaboration, and identify mechanisms for building and maintaining research networks. One working group will focus on communication and information technology challenges faced by this community of scholars. To more effectively address this sub-topic, several IT experts will join the main workshop on its last day and remain at NSF, working with a subset of the participants on the fourth day to address the IT challenges. This group will work to recommend methods for enhancing communication that might include assembling research/personnel directories and bibliographies, addressing issues of information/data management, sharing information on IT infrastructure advances and opportunities, and the use of digital libraries to strengthen international science research and education in the US and Africa. The results of the workshop will be available in a report to be available electronically on the worldwide web, and distributed on CDs in Africa.