NRT: Sustainable Oceans: From Policy to Science to Decisions

海洋覆盖了地球70%以上的面积，在人类福祉的几乎所有方面都发挥着关键作用，包括调节气候、生物多样性和养活世界日益增长的人口。社会面临的一个重大挑战是提高对自然和人类对海洋生态系统影响的科学认识，以确保海洋继续为子孙后代提供食物。为了克服这一挑战，我们国家的一部分劳动力必须解决对假设驱动的研究的未得到满足和不断增长的需求，以便为联邦和州资源管理机构的决策提供信息。这项授予加州大学戴维斯分校的国家科学基金会研究培训(NRT)奖将在一种新的范式下培训下一代海洋科学家，这种新范式将政策重点放在研究和培训企业的前端，作为在可持续利用海洋生物资源的科学和决策之间建立更有效联系的手段。该项目预计将培训60名博士生，其中包括30名资助学员，来自生态学、保护生物学、经济学、地质学、生理学、生物地球化学和海洋学。越来越多的人认识到，科学界和政策界之间的脱节是因为科学研究问题与政策制定者做出明智决策所需的信息不一致，而且研究人员很少有必要的广角镜头来理解他们的学科研究如何与其他科学相结合来解决政策问题。培训方案范例的基础是一个新的因果链模型，该模型从政策目标延伸到衡量管理决策影响所需的不同类型的科学信息。通过因果链开展工作的做法，再加上对利益攸关方的实地考察、基地营(与决策者和利益攸关方围绕海洋管理问题组织的为期一周的讲习班)、实习、短期访问科学家、研究专题讨论会、数据模型集成培训以及沉浸在海洋科学和政策中，将使受训者更深入地了解他们自己的科学、技术和经济研究如何适应政策进程。受训者将从不同的人群中招募，特别注意来自依赖自然资源的社区(例如，加利福尼亚州北部的部落民族、农村和偏远沿海城镇)的学生。招募、指导和职业发展技能贯穿于培训计划的所有要素，包括与部落国家的研究伙伴关系，以及通过实地考察和基地营地与依赖资源的社区直接接触。培训计划的内容也向加州州立大学(CSU)的硕士学生开放，通过我们与加州州立大学海洋事务与技术委员会(海岸)计划合作的新颖学者计划。NRT项目将帮助塑造加州大学戴维斯分校新的海洋科学博士项目的未来课程。NSF研究培训(NRT)项目旨在鼓励为STEM研究生教育培训开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革性的新模式。Traineesship Track致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致的综合培训模式，在高度优先的跨学科研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。

Oceans span over 70% of the Earth and play critical roles in almost all facets of human well-being, including regulating climate, biodiversity, and feeding the world's growing population. A grand challenge for society is to improve the scientific understanding of natural and human impacts on marine ecosystems to ensure that the oceans continue to provide for generations to come. To overcome this challenge, a segment of our nation's workforce must address an unmet and growing demand for hypothesis-driven research to inform the decisions of federal and state resource management agencies. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of California, Davis will train the next generation of marine scientists under a new paradigm that puts the policy focus on the front-end of the research and training enterprise as a means of building more effective links between the science and decisions on sustainable use of living marine resources. The project anticipates training 60 PhD students, including 30 funded trainees, from ecology, conservation biology, economics, geology, physiology, biogeochemistry, and oceanography. There is growing appreciation that the disconnect between the scientific and policy communities is due to the scientific research questions not aligning with the information that policymakers need to make informed decisions, and to the researchers rarely having the wide-angle lens necessary to understand how their disciplinary research integrates with other science to address policy questions. The basis for the training program's paradigm is a novel causal chain model that extends from a policy goal to the different types of scientific information needed to measure the impacts of management decisions. The practice of working through a causal chain, coupled with fieldtrips to stakeholders, basecamps (week-long workshops with decision-makers and stakeholders organized around marine management issues), internships, short-term visiting scientists, research symposium, data-model integration training, and immersion in marine science and policy will provide trainees with a deeper understanding of how their own STEM research, founded in the primary perspective of a single discipline, fits into a policy process. Trainees will be recruited from a diversity of populations, with special attention to students from natural resource-dependent communities (e.g., tribal nations in Northern California, rural and remote coastal towns). Recruitment, mentoring, and professional development skills are woven throughout all of the elements of the training program, including research partnerships with tribal nations and direct engagement with resource-dependent communities via the fieldtrips and basecamps. Elements of the training program are also open to California State University (CSU) masters students through our novel Scholars Program in partnership with CSU's Council on Ocean Affairs and Technology (COAST) program. The NRT program will help shape the future curriculum of a new Marine Science PhD program at UC Davis.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.