Project Incubation: Training Undergraduates in Collaborative Research Ethics

这个孵化奖支持来自一所文理学院和传统黑人学院和大学的不同学科的研究人员团队，他们将与阿拉巴马州的社区伙伴合作，开发课程材料和一个关于研究伦理的试点讲习班。该项目的目标是建立一个研究人员网络，以响应基于最佳实践的社区指示，促进环境研究中的公正、公平、多样性和包容性。让社区伙伴作为知识的保存者和导师——以及作为项目目标的共同创造者——参与进来，提供了一个独特的机会，可以发展有道德和负责任的合作研究设计和实践方法，并为这种伙伴关系树立榜样，目标是赋予社区权力。项目团队将招募和培训各种各样的学生，学习合作的最佳实践，为环境正义社区、道德委员会和教育机构制定可操作的指导方针。该项目将使教师、本科生和社区合作伙伴能够相互学习，共同致力于使阿拉巴马州的社区受益，并培养学生的研究伦理和环境正义。该团队将使用一个三阶段过程来开发和验证一个新的框架，以培训学生在社区参与研究的伦理方面。远程规划阶段将通过利用社区参与的方法来建立框架，将当地社区成员和组织者的声音集中起来，以发展道德和负责任的合作研究设计方法。在协同阶段，研究人员、学生和社区领袖将共同努力，通过协作课程来完善和传播最初的框架。在研讨会阶段，学生将学习与环境正义社区合作的最佳实践，以及使用软件工具收集地理空间数据、环境污染物采样和口头叙述数据的方法。该项目将试行一套课程和方法，以培训不同群体的本科生进行环境正义社区的伦理研究，其与环境变化、减缓和适应气候变化的协同作用，以及促进机构对正义、公平、多样性和包容的承诺的最佳做法。项目成果将通过与社区成员、组织者和合作伙伴的反复在线流程进行评估和完善。该项目由生物科学理事会资助，并由社会、行为和经济科学理事会ER2项目管理。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。

This incubation award supports a team of researchers from diverse disciplines at a liberal arts college and Historically Black Colleges and Universities who will work with community partners in Alabama to develop curricular materials and a pilot workshop on the ethics of research. The project’s aim is to develop a network of researchers to respond to community directions rooted in best practices to facilitate justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in environmental research. Inclusion of community partners as knowledge keepers and mentors – and as co-creators of the project’s goals – offers a unique opportunity to develop ethical and responsible methods of collaborative research design and practice and to model such partnerships, with the goal of empowering communities. The project team will recruit and train a diverse group of students in best practices for collaboration to create actionable guidelines for environmental justice communities, ethics boards, and educational institutions. The project will enable faculty, undergraduates, and community partners to learn from one another, with the shared intention of benefiting communities in Alabama and training students on research ethics and environmental justice. The team will use a three-phase process to develop and validate a new framework for training students in the ethics of community-engaged research. The remote planning phase will create the framework by utilizing community-engaged approaches to center the voices of local community members and organizers to develop ethical and responsible methods of collaborative research design. In the synergy phase, researchers, students, and community leaders will work together to refine and disseminate the initial framework through collaborative coursework. At the workshop phase, students will learn best practices for collaboration with environmental justice communities as well as methods of geospatial data, environmental pollutant sampling, and oral narrative data collection using software tools. The project will pilot a curriculum and methodology for training a diverse cohort of undergraduates in ethical research with environmental justice communities, its synergy with environmental change and climate mitigation and adaptation, and best practices for facilitating institutional commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Outcomes of the project will be assessed and refined through an iterative online process with community members, organizers, and partners.This project is funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and managed by the ER2 Program of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic 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.