The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC): Advancing socio-environmental research through computational, theoretical, and interdisciplinary science

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

Equitable, ethical, and sustainable uses of the Earth's finite resources require an understanding of how human behaviors affect and respond to the environment. The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) facilitates novel research across the natural and social sciences to achieve this understanding and to provide the knowledge needed to address complex problems challenging human societies globally. The Center will develop education and training activities to build capacity across all career stages to solve complex problems and to develop a new generation of researchers skilled in collaboration and communication. These activities will emphasize the relevance of socio-environmental synthesis to real world problems by including policy-makers, governmental agencies, and non-governmental agencies in all activities, ensuring that these knowledge users obtain the information they need to make sound decisions. New investments will train thought leaders, educators, and decision-makers of the future. Building capacity extends to increased involvement of under-served groups in solving societal problems. Partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, coupled with active mentoring of their undergraduates and faculty, will engage these communities in environmental challenges that have significant cultural, economic, and social implications. Center activities will build computational literacy and provide publicly-available analytical tools that will advance computational training far beyond SESYNC's participants. Through a suite of new activities, SESYNC will build capacity to find solutions to pressing societal challenges. SESYNC has established itself as a pioneer in the integrative, computationally intensive, and trans-disciplinary research that defines a new biology for the 21st century. Its approach for the future relies on a firmly vetted and established approach to synthesis developed over 5 years of experiment and testing. Activities focus on developing a community of practice for socio-environmental synthesis. New partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities will establish workshops, collaborative synthesis projects, and a peer faculty-student network to foster exchange of ideas, provide intellectual and moral support, and facilitate access to professional development and research opportunities. A new postdoctoral program focuses on 'immersion' to accelerate development of integrated, inter-disciplinary research projects. Fellows will first initiate a project in their own discipline and then be quickly immersed, through lectures and workshops, in the theory and practice of related disciplines. Graduate students will direct their own synthesis working groups to develop skills in collaboration and communication early in their careers. Diverse efforts to track participants will sustain their involvement in socio-environmental synthesis after leaving SESYNC. A new cyberinfrastructure program, Data to Motivate Synthesis, will use facilitated data discovery and team science workshops to formulate research questions at the interface of social-natural sciences. A new collaboration with Georgetown University's Environmental Initiative will strengthen SESYNC's 'actionable' scholarship portfolio and further broaden participation in socio-environmental synthesis. The two institutions will co-support four postdoctoral fellows to conduct synthesis research on science-policy links. The success of all activities will be measured against established goals and milestones through formative and summative assessment.