Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Technology-Empowered Communities of Recovery (TECOR)

工程研究中心规划奖助金竞赛是作为ERC计划的试点征集活动进行的。计划拨款并不是整个ERC竞赛的一部分，而是为了在团队之间建立能力，以计划集中的、中心规模的工程研究。由于严重的公共卫生和经济负担，物质使用障碍(SUDS)对受影响的个人、他们的家庭和社区以及社会都有严重的负面影响。虽然目前肆虐美国各地社区的阿片类药物流行引起了全国的关注，但肥皂水是一个长期存在的挑战，涉及多种物质，预计在可预见的未来将引起社会关注。近年来，有一个明显的转变，即以解决方案为导向的康复模式，以应对SUDS，强调非临床替代治疗，及早识别危险行为，治疗后监测和预防复发，并通过加强社区网络维持长期康复。在这种模式下，工程学方法可以解决知识方面的重要差距，并建立预防复发和维持恢复的能力。在这笔规划赠款中，乔治梅森大学和我们的合作伙伴寻求开展必要的规划活动，以创建一个强大而有影响力的工程研究中心(ERC)，专注于使用工程系统为患有SUDS的患者周围的康复社区提供支持，以实现长期健康和健康方面的可衡量改善。拟议的规划活动将吸引来自神经科学、心理学、护理、计算机科学、电气工程和生物工程等不同背景的学生共同努力，以应对重大的社会挑战。这项ERC规划赠款的目标是：(1)加强学术合作伙伴和SODS利益相关者社区之间的关系，(2)形成一个多样化的、多学科的ERC团队、一个高绩效的执行领导团队和一个强大的、社区参与的治理结构，以指导ERC方案活动在所有四个基本要素(研究、劳动力发展、包容文化、创新生态系统)中的实施，以及(3)制定一个全面的战略框架，围绕支持以技术为动力的恢复社区的集体愿景进行建设。规划资助小组将就当前研究知识中的障碍和差距以及可用于解决这些差距的工程方法制定一些假设。然后，我们将基于对从利益相关者收集的证据的分析，反复更新这些假设和解决方案，并制定一份框架文件。我们将与主要利益攸关方组织一次战略规划务虚会，以制定研究议程。根据确定的研究议程，我们将确定合适的ERC领导团队，并组织一次全国研讨会，以完善激励愿景和关键需求。规划赠款的预期收益将包括协调不同社区的努力，确定利益相关者的需求和具有长期、中期和近期影响的优先事项，记录最佳做法，并开发一个聚合的多系统框架，以使用来自个人、家庭和照顾者以及社区支持网络的工程系统方法在多个规模上应对潜在挑战。该奖励反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) have significant negative consequences for the affected individuals, their families and communities, as well as society due to the significant public health and economic burden. While the opioid epidemic currently ravaging communities throughout the US has garnered national attention, SUDs are a long-standing challenge, involve a variety of substances, and are expected to be of societal concern for the foreseeable future. In recent years, there has been a marked shift towards a solution-oriented recovery paradigm for addressing SUDs that emphasizes non-clinical alternatives to treatment, early identification of at-risk behavior, post-treatment monitoring and relapse prevention, and sustaining long-term recovery through strengthening community networks. In such a paradigm, engineering approaches can address important gaps in knowledge and build capacity for preventing relapse and maintaining recovery. In this planning grant, George Mason University and our partners seek to conduct the planning activities necessary to create a powerful and impactful Engineering Research Center (ERC) focused on empowering communities of recovery around individuals with SUDs using engineered systems to achieve measurable improvements in long-term health and wellness. The proposed planning activities will engage students from diverse backgrounds, such as neuroscience, psychology, nursing, computer science, electrical engineering and bioengineering to work together using a convergence approach to tackle a significant societal challenge.The objectives of this ERC planning grant are to: (1) strengthen relationships between academic partners and SUDs stakeholder communities, (2) form a diverse, multidisciplinary ERC team, a high-performing executive leadership team, and a robust, community-engaged governance structure to guide implementation of the ERC programmatic activities across all four foundational elements (Research, Workforce Development, Culture of Inclusion, Innovation Ecosystem) and (3) develop a comprehensive strategic framework, building around a collective vision for supporting technology-empowered communities of recovery. The planning grant team will formulate a number of hypotheses about current barriers and gaps in research knowledge, and engineering approaches that can be used to address these gaps. We will then iteratively update these hypotheses and solutions based on analysis of collected evidence from stakeholders and develop a framing paper. We will organize a strategic planning retreat with key stakeholders to develop a research agenda. Based on the identified research agenda, we will identify an appropriate ERC leadership team and organize a national symposium to refine the motivating vision and critical needs. The anticipated benefits of the planning grant will include a coordination of efforts across different communities, identification of stakeholder needs and priorities with long-, mid- and near-term impact, documentation of best practices and development of a convergent multi-system framework for addressing the underlying challenges using an engineered system approach at multiple scales, from individuals, family and caregivers, and community support networks.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.