Collaborative Research: Implementation Grant: Active Societal Participation In Research and Education

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

The Active Societal Participation In Research and Education (ASPIRE) program seeks to expand the places and people involved in meeting challenging environmental change issues through supporting and encouraging geoscience research co-managed by scientists and community members. The vision of ASPIRE is that supporting place-based, community-based work will simultaneously attract, recruit, and retain early career scientists in the Geosciences, as well as strengthen public trust in Geoscience to address the local-to-global environmental issues threatening our world. ASPIRE recognizes that the urgency of these issues means work to develop geoscientist leaders must be accompanied by meaningful exchange with communities. The goal is to support a learning ecosystem that engages early career scientists (Pathmakers) and community members in a phased curriculum that 1) offers a virtual discussion series to have broad impact for a large number of participants, 2) offers immersive institutes for early career scientists to participate in person and in community for training around ethical best practices, 3) provides support both financially and through mentoring for these new leaders to carry out co-produced research, 4) connects Changemakers from administrative leadership roles in an innovation incubator to pursue change needed to endorse community-based science and 5) cultivates a community of practice for participants to grow and communally learn from one another. The ASPIRE program outlines a mechanism for transformation of the Geosciences that supports and elevates asset-based framing of community-based research. This project continues work to understand geoscience boundary spanners who “have a foot in both worlds” of mainstream geoscience and community. The project pursues a theory of change that place-based, community-based research, co-produced with boundary spanners, becomes a catalyst for Geosciences and community collaborations. Research questions examine the core leadership competencies that contribute to the application of leadership theory to boundary spanning work. It will also determine how a two-cohort Pathmaker and Changemaker model can actively engage leadership in mainstream science to effect meaningful change that endorses community-based science. This work will raise the visibility and relevant application of the geosciences within communities and ultimately help increase participation in STEM. 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.