Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Cognitive NeuroEngineering

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。圣何塞州立大学和加州大学戴维斯分校正在与劳伦斯·利弗莫尔国家实验室合作，计划在认知神经工程领域建立一个潜在的工程研究中心。认知神经工程是人类与机器互动进化的下一步。今天，机器准备实现这一重大飞跃：从使用视觉、触觉和声音与我们的外围神经系统交互，到直接与我们的中枢神经系统交互，再到迎来一个每个人都将通过思考自己想要做什么来操纵计算机、家用机器和其他辅助设备的世界。站在这一新工程学科的前沿，并解决机器与中枢神经系统直接接口的认知影响，符合我们的国家--S。为了促进科学进步，确保国家的健康、繁荣和福利，我们将发展一支多元化的团队，能够有效地履行拟议的ERC的使命，并创建一个具有最大社会经济影响机会的中心。为了实现这一目标，该项目将吸引从科学家和工程师到临床医生和最终用户的广泛利益攸关方，以改善这些社区之间更好地理解和信任的机会。此外，每个社区带来的专门知识将被用来创建协同合作伙伴关系，以促进这一新领域的科学、教育和伦理方面的发展。将对国家劳动力发展和我们监管环境的任何变化提出建议。这项提议有三个主要的预期好处。首先是优化利益相关者群体的多样性，以最大限度地发挥认知神经工程这一新领域的潜在社会效益。第二是改进了团队活力，使利益相关者能够做出贡献，而不考虑地位和权力的差异。第三是通过利用团队科学中基于证据的研究来更有效地领导。正如人的因素工程已经成长为认知工程一样，认知神经工程超越了目前的神经假体应用，解决了机器与中枢神经系统直接接口的认知影响。这种潜在的ERC代表着人类技术前沿未来工作的最重要的新挑战之一。使用基于团队的科学，这项ERC将接受融合研究，并解决与中枢神经系统接口的复杂性及其对认知的影响。将开发新的数据分析方法，实现对人类认知的更好理解，并将创造创新的神经技术，预计将影响社会，超出拟议的ERC的目标。为了发展拟议的认知神经工程学ERC，这笔规划赠款将用于1)举行一系列规划会议，最终举办三个讲习班；2)在伙伴机构之间和相关利益攸关方社区之间旅行，以第一手交流合作伙伴资源；3)聘请一名专业推动者参与战略规划以及两名专家，一名从事汇聚科学，另一名从事团队科学。这三个研讨会围绕着我们的四个目标。第一个目标是找出我们ERC的优势和劣势。第二个目标是找出部署我们拟议的工程系统的机会和多样化的机会。第三个目标是利用团队科学的最新技术充分发展团队和利益相关者社区，包括提高我们阐明社会影响的能力。第四个目标是编写ERC提案。这笔规划拨款将对制定我们的环境资源中心的一套战略目标和指标产生最大的影响。这将使我们能够仔细考虑并更深入地了解我们的环境影响委员会的社会影响。由于团队在认同项目的社会影响时更有可能参与进来，这将提高利益相关者的参与度。此外，预计这些活动将发展新的思维方式，以缓解利益相关者之间的重大沟通和哲学差异，并促进ERC的跨学科性质，其成员具有重大的沟通和哲学差异。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.San Jose State University and University of California, Davis are partnering with Lawrence Livermore National Labs to plan for a potential Engineering Research Center in Cognitive Neuroengineering. Cognitive NeuroEngineering is the next step in the evolution of human interactions with machines. Today, machines are poised to make this important leap: from interfacing with our peripheral nervous system using sight, touch, and sound to interfacing directly with our central nervous system to usher in a world in which everyone will command computers, household machines and other assistive devices simply by thinking about what they want to do. It is in our nation?s interest to be at the forefront of this new engineering discipline and to addresses the cognitive implications of directly interfacing machines with the central nervous system. To promote the progress of science and ensure the nation's health, prosperity and welfare we will develop a diverse team that can effectively address the mission of the proposed ERC and create a Center that has the greatest opportunity for socioeconomic impact. To accomplish this, this project will engage a broad range of stakeholders, from scientist and engineers to clinicians and end-users to improve opportunities for better understanding and trust between these communities. In addition, the specialized knowledge that each community brings will be leveraged to create synergistic partnerships that advances the scientific, educational, and ethical aspects of this new field. Recommendations for national workforce development and any changes to our regulatory environment will be made. There are three major expected benefits of this proposal. The first is to optimize diversity of the stakeholder community to maximize the potential societal benefit of this new field of Cogntive Neuroengineering. The second is improved team dynamics to empower stakeholders to contribute regardless of status and power differences. The third is more effective leadership by utilizing evidence based research in team science.Just as Human Factors Engineering has grown into Cognitive Engineering, Cognitive NeuroEngineering goes beyond current neuroprosthetic applications and addresses the cognitive implications of directly interfacing machines with the central nervous system. This potential ERC represents one of the most important new challenges of the future of work at the human-technology frontier. Using team-based science, this ERC will embrace convergent research and address the complexity of interfacing with the central nervous system and its impact on cognition. Novel data analytic approaches will be developed, a greater understanding of human cognition will be achieved and innovative neurotechnologies will be created that are expected to impact society beyond the goals of the proposed ERC. To develop the proposed ERC in Cognitive Neuroengineering, this planning grant will be used to 1) enable a series of planning meetings that culminate in three workshops, 2) travel between the partner institutions and to relevant stakeholder communities for first hand exchanges of partner resources and 3) engage a profession facilitator in strategic planning as well as two experts, one in convergent science and the other in the team science. The three workshops revolve around our four Objectives. The first Objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses of our ERC. The second Objective is to identify opportunities for deployment of our proposed engineering system and opportunities for diversity. The third Objective is to fully develop the team and stakeholder community using the latest techniques of team science, including improving our ability to articulate the societal impacts. The fourth Objective is to write the ERC proposal. This planning grant will have the greatest impact on the formulation of a set of strategic objectives and metrics for our ERC. This will allow us to consider carefully and more deeply understand the societal impact of our ERC. Since groups are more likely to engage when they identify with the societal impact of a project, this will improve stakeholder engagement. In addition, the activities are expected to develop new ways of thinking to ease the significant communication and philosophical difference among stakeholders and facilitate the transdisciplinary nature of the ERC whose constituents have significant communication and philosophical differences.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.