Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Naturally Inspired Resilient, Sustainable and Adaptable Infrastructure

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规划汇聚的、中心规模的工程研究的能力。2017年，美国极端天气造成了超过3000亿美元的损失，直接和间接损失都创下了新的纪录。除了与天气有关的事件造成的损失外，极端的地质和人为灾害还可能给经济造成惊人的财政负担。需要了解是什么使社区具有复原力，从而使他们能够适应这些事件并迅速从这些事件中恢复，这对国家的生存至关重要。我们认为，理解如何有效和高效地从这些极端事件中恢复的关键是检查自然系统，这些系统内在地抵抗、适应和进化以适应不断演变的压力源。生态复原力考察了自然系统对干扰作出反应的能力，并衡量了系统恢复到正常运行状态的能力。虽然人类通过简化和秩序来寻求弹性和可持续性，但自然系统的多样性和复杂性使它们具有弹性和可持续性。因此，理解使系统具有弹性的属性需要了解系统的各个组件以及这些组件之间的相互依赖关系。这个潜在工程研究中心(ERC)的独特性是我们的假设，因为对单个有机体的研究不是弹性的关键，而是对这些有机体所居住和启用的系统的研究。大自然为发展分析方法、模型和系统提供了一条途径，这些方法、模型和系统对极端事件和条件具有复原力。这项计划拨款的任务是发展跨学科研究的团队和结构，检查弹性自然系统的属性，在创新研究人员之间建立合作，并构建一个基础设施，允许通过技术转让促进经济发展的合作研究。一笔成功的赠款将提供研究，从而大幅改善国防设施和网络，建设具有弹性和效率的下一代基础设施，并进行适应性强的社区规划。所获得的知识将使社区领导人、规划者、工程师和公众了解如何减轻极端事件的影响并从极端事件中恢复过来。在自然系统中可以发现，提供基础设施和社区复原力的全面方法所需的跨越科学和工程的知识、学科和方法的整合。通过考虑从有机体到系统层面的多尺度研究，我们预计a)用于基础设施的可适应、可持续和高效的材料和形式，b)利用系统中的相互依赖来提高人类社区的韧性，c)开发基于自然过程的已建基础设施的优化、集成和适应性的算法，以及d)改进的教学方法，以发展创新的设计师和社区领袖。这笔规划赠款将采用一种新的方法来发展跨学科研究团队，既包括创造力又包括多样性，并提供跨机构分类的纳入机制。该中心的模型本身将通过认识到研究人员之间的相互依赖与个人研究人员的专业知识一样重要，来对自然系统进行建模。研究小组认识到，并不是所有的环境与资源中心规划赠款都将导致成功资助环境与资源中心。然而，规划过程仍将产生重大的更广泛的影响，包括发展1)多规模、跨学科的团队，以适当地处理具有弹性和可持续结构的仿生2)在仿生领域的技术转让、创新和经济发展的产业伙伴关系3)促进共享资源、参与团队和广泛多样性的组织结构，4)能够跨学科边界进行创造性合成的已确定的研究人员网络，以及5)认可超越“视觉上可识别的”人口多样性的限制的多样化团队。该奖项反映了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.Over 300 Billion dollars in damages were incurred in 2017 due to extreme weather in the U.S., a new record in terms of both direct and indirect losses. In addition to losses from weather-related events, extreme geologic and human-caused disasters can cause staggering financial burdens to the economy. The need for understanding what makes communities resilient whereby they can adapt and recover quickly from these events is fundamental to the survival of the nation. We propose that a key to understanding how to effectively and efficiently recovery from these extreme events is to examine natural systems that inherently resist, adapt, and evolve to ever-evolving stressors. Ecological resilience examines the ability of a natural system to respond to disturbances and measures the system's ability to return to a functioning state. While humans seek resiliency and sustainability through simplification and order, the diversity and complexity of natural systems is what makes them resilient & sustainable. Therefore, understanding the attributes that make a system resilient requires an understanding of both the individual components of the system and the interdependencies of these components. The uniqueness of this potential Engineering Research Center (ERC) is our hypothesis in that it is not the study of individual organisms that is the key to resilience, but the study of the systems that these organisms inhabit and enable. Nature has provided an avenue for developing analysis methods, models and systems that provide resilience to extreme events and conditions. The mission of this planning grant is to develop the team and structure of transdisciplinary research that examines the attributes of resilient natural systems, create collaborations between innovative researchers, and construct an infrastructure that allows for collaborative research leading to economic development through tech transfer. A successful grant would provide research leading to substantially improved national defense facilities and networks, the next generation of resilient and efficient infrastructure, and adaptable community planning. The knowledge gained would inform community leaders, planners, engineers and the public on mitigating the impact of and recovering from extreme events. The integration of knowledge, disciplines and methods that span science and engineering required to provide comprehensive approaches to infrastructure and community resilience is found in natural systems. By considering multi-scale research from the organism to system levels, we anticipate dramatic increases to the state of the art in a) adaptable, sustainable and efficient materials and forms for use in infrastructure, b) leveraging the interdependencies in systems to improve human community resilience, c) developing algorithms for optimization, integration and adaptability of built infrastructure based on natural processes, and d) improved pedagogical approaches for development of innovative designers and community leaders. This planning grant will take a novel approach to developing transdisciplinary research teams that embrace both creativity and diversity, and that provide mechanisms for inclusion across institutional classifications. The model for the center will itself model natural systems by recognizing that interdependencies between researchers are as important as the expertise of the individual researchers. The research team recognizes that not all ERC planning grants will lead to successfully funded ERCs. However, the planning process will still provide significant broader impacts including development of 1) Multi-scale, transdisciplinary teams to appropriately tackle biomimicry for resilient and sustainable structures 2) Industrial partnerships for tech transfer, innovation and economic development in the area of biomimicry 3) Organizational structures that promote shared resources, engaged teaming and broad diversity, 4) An identified network of researchers capable of creative synthesis across disciplinary boundaries and 5) Recognition of diverse teaming beyond the limits of "visually identifiable" demographic diversity.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.