SAI-P: Developing Long-Term Socio-Technical Research Programs with Electric Cooperatives

加强美国基础设施（SAI）是NSF的一项计划，旨在促进以人为本的基础和潜在的变革性研究，以加强美国的基础设施。有效的基础设施为社会经济活力和广泛改善生活质量奠定了坚实的基础。强大、可靠和有效的基础设施刺激私营部门创新，促进经济增长，创造就业机会，提高公共部门服务提供的效率，加强社区建设，促进机会平等，保护自然环境，增强国家安全，并推动美国的领导地位。为了实现这些目标，需要来自科学和工程学科的专业知识。SAI专注于人类推理和决策，治理以及社会和文化过程的知识如何使建设和维护有效的基础设施，改善生活和社会，并建立在技术和工程进步的基础上。但很大一部分人口由电力合作社提供服务，主要是在农村地区。 这些是社区拥有和社区管理的电力公司，在自我管理方面表现出巨大的创新。电力合作社建立了分布式资源组合，实现了范围经济。然而，他们现在正在寻求调整他们的电网，以适应一个不那么集中的化石燃料发电和更多脱碳和电气化的分布式能源的世界。随着社会对新技术、组织能力和商业实践的需求，从化石燃料燃烧过渡到更清洁的电力终端用途，电力合作社面临着巨大的适应压力。 该SAI规划项目在大学研究人员、赠地大学推广服务和农村电力合作社之间建立了新的、更深入的能力建设伙伴关系，以促进研究到行动方案。其目的是促进农村能源转型的集体创新和管理，同时提高农村社区的生活质量，农村电力合作社维持耦合的社会技术基础设施系统，包括相互连接的有形电力系统资产和围绕其有形基础设施的社会治理系统和机构。该项目围绕农村电力合作社的物质和社会基础设施系统的动态进行识别、管理和创新的能力建设。该项目的目标是建立一个“长期社会技术研究”（LTSTR）计划的模型，其中位于当地的跨学科研究人员，推广服务和农村电力合作社建立持久的伙伴关系，以知识为行动计划，提升社区利益相关者的参与，以及持久的以消费者为中心的能源转型。该项目旨在了解大学与公用事业长期合作伙伴关系的有效模式，并制定战略，加强这些伙伴关系对农村社区活力的长期影响。LTSTR计划提供了一个平台，以促进短期研究人员和学生主导的项目，沿着培训，以支持与农村社区脱碳和电气化的未来。在与公用事业和社区合作伙伴的伙伴关系，这个SAI规划项目建立了一个战略，扩大和正式参与研究方法在不同的背景下在美国各地。这个奖项是由理事会支持的社会，行为，经济（SBE）该奖项反映了NSF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进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF Program seeking to stimulate human-centered fundamental and potentially transformative research that strengthens America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad quality of life improvement. Strong, reliable, and effective infrastructure spurs private-sector innovation, grows the economy, creates jobs, makes public-sector service provision more efficient, strengthens communities, promotes equal opportunity, protects the natural environment, enhances national security, and fuels American leadership. To achieve these goals requires expertise from across the science and engineering disciplines. SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.Most electricity in the United States is delivered by large utilities. But a significant segment of the population is served by electric cooperatives, mostly in rural areas. These are community-owned and community-managed electric utilities that have shown great innovation in their self-governance. Electric cooperatives have built portfolios of distributed resources that achieve economies of scope. Yet they are now seeking to adapt their electric grids to a world with less centralized fossil-fueled generation and more decarbonized and electrified distributed energy resources. With societal demands for new technologies, organizational competencies, and business practices to transition from fossil fuel combustion to cleaner electric end uses, electric cooperatives are facing intense pressure to adapt. This SAI planning project builds new and deeper capacity-building partnerships between university researchers, land grant university extension services, and rural electric cooperatives for research-to-action programs. The aim is to advance the collective innovation and management of rural energy transitions while improving the quality of life for rural communities.Rural electric cooperatives maintain coupled socio-technical infrastructure systems consisting of connected physical electricity-system assets and social systems of governance and institutions surrounding their physical infrastructure. This project builds capacity to identify, manage, and innovate around the dynamics of the physical and social infrastructure systems of rural electric cooperatives. The goal of this project is to establish a model of “Long-Term Socio-Technical Research” (LTSTR) programs wherein locally situated interdisciplinary researchers, extension services, and rural electric cooperatives build durable partnerships for knowledge-to-action programs, elevation of community stakeholder participation, and durable consumer-centric energy transitions. This project seeks to understand effective models for long-term university-cooperative utility partnerships and develop strategies for strengthening the impact of these partnerships on rural community vitality over time. LTSTR programs provide a platform to facilitate short-term researcher- and student-led projects, along with training to support a decarbonized and electrified future with rural communities. In partnership with utility and community partners, this SAI planning project builds a strategy for expanding and formalizing engaged research methods in diverse contexts across the United States.This award is supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences.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.