Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for EMpowering People to achieve Optimal Well-being through Engineering Research: EMPOWER Center

工程研究中心规划拨款竞赛是ERC项目的试点征集。规划补助金不需要作为ERC竞赛的一部分，但它旨在在团队之间建立能力，以规划聚合的、中心规模的工程研究。卫生不平等不是孤立的，而是与教育和财富紧密相连的，弗林特水危机等复杂问题突出了这一点。这些领域的差异对个人、社区和社会的福祉产生负面影响。以社区为基础的私营和公共社会行动机构，如施粥所和住房收容所，往往孤立运作，往往沟通能力有限，更不用说与其他机构合作了。健康、教育和财富交叉领域的机遇和挑战需要工程师、社会科学家和计算机科学家共同努力，改善个人和社区的福祉。为了解决这些差异，这项规划拨款将汇集多个不同的利益团体，以推动有意义的社会影响，并为以人为本的工程研究中心的发展提供信息。该中心将专注于通过工程研究赋予人们权力以实现最佳福祉（授权中心）。区域规划会议将把非营利机构、潜在的工业合作伙伴和工程界联系起来。这将促进信息共享、创意产生，并促进区域利益相关者社区网络的发展，从而彻底改变我们国家解决福祉问题的方式。拟议中的EMPOWER中心将利用、综合并从数据中学习。这些数据将从分散的、历史上不相连的、具有不同级别或缺乏结构的不同来源收集。这些活动的目标是帮助社区了解情况并增强其能力，以解决差距问题。我们将开发一个数据驱动的智能社区健康监测系统，使政策制定者、社区领袖和个人能够做出明智的决定，从而改善健康状况。这项规划拨款将发展和吸引社区合作伙伴作为研究团队的成员，并为所有关键利益相关者建立包容性文化。为了实现我们的目标，计划拨款将：从ERC合作机构所涵盖的广泛地区发展一个由研究伙伴、非营利机构和行业伙伴组成的网络；组建一个融合工程、社会科学、人种学研究、教育、医学和商业等领域专业知识的研究团队，形成以社区为基础的思想领导力；并为EMPOWER中心确定具体的以社区为中心和社区知情的研究目标。EMPOWER中心将利用融合研究的力量，工程师、人种学研究人员、计算机科学家、社会和行为科学家、教育专家以及医疗、法律和商业社区的成员合作，改善个人和社区的健康。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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 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.Health inequities are not isolated but intricately interconnected with education and wealth as highlighted by complex problems such as the Flint water crisis. Disparities within these areas negatively affect the well-being of individuals, communities, and society. Community-based, private and public social-action agencies, such as soup kitchens and housing shelters, tend to operate in isolation and often have limited ability to communicate let alone collaborate with other agencies. The opportunities and challenges that lie within the intersection of health, education, and wealth require engineers, social scientists, and computer scientists working together to improve the well-being of individuals and communities. To address these disparities, this planning grant will bring together multiple, diverse interest groups to drive meaningful societal impacts and inform the development of a human-centered engineering research center. This proposed center will be focused on EMpowering People to achieve Optimal Well-being through Engineering Research (EMPOWER Center). Regional planning meetings will connect non-profit agencies to each other, to potential industry partners, and to the engineering community. This will facilitate information sharing, idea generation, and foster the development of regional stakeholder community networks to revolutionize how our nation addresses well-being. The proposed EMPOWER Center will harness, synthesize, and learn from data. This data will be gathered from disparate sources that are distributed, historically disconnected, and have varied levels or a lack of structure. The goal of these activities is to help inform and empower communities to address disparities. We will develop a data-enabled intelligent community-wellness monitoring system that enables policy makers, community leaders, and individuals to make informed decisions that yields improved wellness. This planning grant will develop and engage community partners as members of the research team and establish an inclusive culture for all key stakeholders. To achieve our goals, the planning grant will: develop a network of research partners, non-profit agencies, and industry partners from the breadth of regions covered by the ERC partner institutions; form a convergent research team that integrates expertise within engineering, social sciences, ethnographic research, education, medicine, and business with community-based thought leadership; and identify specific community-centered and community-informed research goals for the EMPOWER center. The EMPOWER Center will capture the power of convergent research as engineers, ethnographic researchers, computer scientists, social and behavioral scientists, educational experts, and members of the medical, legal, and business communities collaborate to improve the wellness of individuals and communities.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.