Workshop: Initiation of the Highly Integrated Basic and Responsive Research (HIBAR) Research Alliance

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will provide support for a two-day workshop to be held at the University of California, San Diego. The workshop will convene both academic stakeholders (including senior leadership and individual researchers) and organizational stakeholders (e.g. from APLU, disciplinary societies, etc.) to initiate formation of the HIBAR Research Alliance. HIBAR - Highly Integrated Basic and Responsive Research - involves the partnering of academic researchers with experts from business, civic or non-governmental organizations to ensure a real-world perspective during formulation of research questions. The four key tenets of the HIBAR approach are: 1. Embrace the attainment of new knowledge coupled with the solution of important problems 2. Combine academic research methods with practical design thinking aimed at application 3. Engage, from the outset, efforts of academic and real-world experts as equal partners 4. Target time-to-use less than academic norms and more than in direct application The HIBAR model of using productive collaborative academic-societal partnerships to accelerate breakthrough discoveries offers potential for academic researchers to develop highly impactful research questions that address key societal challenges. The Workshop will take the first steps to establish the HIBAR Research Alliance (HRA), and to identify appropriate strategies for promotion of HIBAR research. Two parallel themes will be discussed. Theme 1 will concentrate on design of nurturing experiential environments to maximize HIBAR research. Theme 2 will focus on scaling these efforts in order to maximize positive impact. The HRA will concentrate on leveraging Networked Improvement Communities to achieve promulgation of the HIBAR approach. Successful promotion of academic engagement with HIBAR research, with consequent acceleration of use-inspired research, offers substantial potential for broader impacts through accelerating breakthrough discoveries that address pressing societal challenges and needs. 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.