Breakout Session C1: Integration of Disciplinary Areas

1. Breakout Session C1:Integration of Disciplinary Areas BE vs. be • Deal with interdisciplinary work in grants and areas outside the BE program • Emphasize priorities in complex environmental systems to disciplinary panels, esp. interacting human and natural systems (not to replace core science)

2. Session C1 “Safe Disciplinary Jobs” Interdisciplinary JOBS $$$ Interdisciplinary Approaches (BE $) How Long Will This Take? Next generations of researchers, But does this lead to DEANS UNIVERSITYADMINISTRATORS

3. Session C1 Tools Synthesis Scientific Questions GIS Sensors Modeling

4. Session C1 “help” “ecologist” & “economist” Or “economist” & “ecologist” Vs. Real Collaboration

5. Session C1 To help future BE projects Current Biocomplexity Studies Really study current projects To see what worked And what did not

6. Breakout Session C2: Environmental Synthesis I Integration of disciplinary areas into broad interdisciplinary approaches

7. Session C2 Researcher Networks • Assembling BE teams: • -tendency toward “checklist” approach • -should be based on based on previous interactions • -opportunities were limited before BE but this is now changing

8. Session C2: Researcher Networks (con’t) • Continuing our collaborations • -Many teams will just be gaining momentum after 5 years • -Will there be opportunities to continue these interactions? What is the expected time horizon of individual projects?

9. Session C2: Synthesis • workshops, planning grants to summarize and synthesize results • follow up proposals for cross-site comparisons • conference like this one years from now when projects, results are more mature

10. Session C2: Infrastructure Developments • Some BE projects have developed extensive computing capability • Programmers are needed - draw on computer science students looking for projects? • Draw on NEON infrastructure if initiated • Directory of technical expertise and technology from BE instrumentation projects

11. Session C2: Water as a complex system • some concern that this significantly narrows the scope of BE • will this be one of several potential BE topics?

12. Breakout Session C3:Integration of Disciplinary Areas • Reseacher Networks • Web site for posting BE abstracts, PI contact information, and links to individual project pages • Meeting/symposia on BE within existing professional societies • Newsletter • List of participants

13. Session C3 2,3, and 4) Opportunities, Gaps, Synthesis, and WATER • Organize/fund “National Center for Biocomplexity” • Model after similar for ecology (e.g., NCEAS) • Virtual and/or Real • Go there for research on existing data sets • THINK TANK

14. Breakout Session C4:International Cooperation for “Sustainable Development” Unique international partnerships in BE ? BE to benefit of international community ?

15. Session C4:Message! • Major benefits in international partnerships • “Cool”, but more than just cool • True collaborations (not scientific imperialism) • Int. collaborators bring expertise, alternate perspectives, gained from diverse cultural, environmental and scientific experience • With regard to LDC: responsibility to support (or support development of) “true” collaborators • NSF should (continue to) support International collaboration !!

16. Session C4:Unique international partnerships in BE ? • Many biocomplexity issues are global issues! • land, oceans and atmosphere; land-use, biodiversity, pollution, economics, trade – an international perspective is needed • BE and NSF allow fundamental (not only applied) research: stimulating/enriching (especially for LDC collaborators), and provide better grounding for applied science. • Further - the systems approach implicit in BE is particularly suited to applied problems ! • Great opportunities via IGBP, IHDP, WMO, ICSU etc. • Provide an umbrella for collaborative science and “sexed-up” proposals • Funding and collaborative opportunities exist in the UN, NGO and Private Foundation arenas (but these can be v. hard to navigate!)

17. Session C4:BE to benefit of international community ? • Scientist level • the benefits of collaborative science: scientific advancement, career advancement, publications, etc. (and/or enhanced training opportunities in countries where student opportunities are limited) • Engagement with international scientific community, international scientific networking and communication • Skills that contribute to teaching and research in home countries • National level • Policy and management understanding and tools that derive from the BE/systems approach • e.g. IVth Framework conventions & carbon trading • Applied solutions to complex problems in the environment, development and sustainability

18. Session C4:Issues • Recognition and $$ support for Int. collaborators can be difficult (Fastlane registration works!). • We’re often forced to explore multiple and complex funding sources for International collaborations • “Homeland” & Int. collaboration…? (visas!) • BE and NSF-INT (new INT funding for BE research?) • NSF Facilitation Role ? • For matching funds that support Int. partners • Sister agencies in other countries • Alternative funding sources for countries where research support limited (UN, foundations)

19. Session C4:“Code of Practice” for International Research • An NSF-INT workshop ? • “Cutting through Scientific Imperialism”

20. Breakout Session C5: International Cooperaton BE research offers special opportunities for addressing questions that are relevant to more sustainable development, and international projects provide both special rewards and challenges to NSF research. Suggestions NSF could encourage more research and international collaborations that focus on sustainable development issues, and which therefore involve significant capacity-building components to the collaborations.

21. Session C5 • NSF should encourage BE (and other) investigators working in developing countries to acknowledge special responsibilities to ensure that foreign researchers who become involved in NSF-supported projects are not exploited. Issues to be considered include the formulation of research questions, authorship of publications, compensation, educational or career benefits, as well as scientific benefits to the societies where research takes place. • In particular, compensation rules and guidelines (e.g., what’s allowed, what’s not, Best Practices) require greater clarity & consistency, since different programs at NSF have different requirements or interpretations. • (In some cases, a compensation-for-output model of support was recommended over a “development” style of bulk payment.) • Professional societies’ codes of ethics could be reflected and reinforced. • Although data-sharing with host countries is an important goal in general, NSF should allow the discretion of researchers, balancing risks & harms, to withhold data about particularly sensitive issues (e.g., the locations of at risk species, habitats, or human communities). • Concerns about contributing to “brain drain” in host countries were discussed. • Results of Prior Support should include accomplishments in areas of capacity building.

22. Session C5 • NSF should facilitate the communication of relevant research results to other agencies (e.g., USAID) to help guide development efforts. • This could help make development efforts more science-based. • And help create the basic human and physical infrastructure that is beyond the capacity-building efforts of single research projects. • NSF should consider ways of providing greater budgetary flexibility to international projects. • changes in currency exchange rates over the course of a project may greatly alter the ability to support the proposed research. • Following international protocols (e.g., prolonged in-country visits for capacity-building) may increase project costs

23. Session C5 • BE research, building on regional and global data products and research from such agencies as NASA and NOAA, offers opportunities to address transboundary dynamics in highly integrative ways. • US-funded research can thereby contribute to solving complex transboundary problems. • US-based researchers can serve as cultural ambassadors in international settings, providing positive individual role-models to people whose other associations with US policy may be less positive.

24. Breakout Session C6:The Future of Biocomplexity • Programmatic issues • Forecasting issues • Tools • What should we have learned by 2010 • What should BE look like in 2010

25. Session C6:Programmatic Issues • Potential for renewal or new grants from current recipients • Maybe program should be permanent • Do we need an institute (maybe like NCEAS) on complex environmental systems as a training/resource center? • Sense that CNH is particularly unique within BE and should be on-going. • Need more social scientists at the table.

26. Session C6:Forecasting Issues • We need to go beyond hypothesis testing toward science-based decision making. • “models of everything” are problematic • Forecasting drives development of models, but feedbacks, path dependence, multiple equillibria make prediction difficult • Question could be recast to: what can we and what can we not know or predict?

27. Session C6:Forecasting Issues (cont.) • Dealing with questions of sustainability in current systems often becomes politicized. • Balance between basic and applied nature of research is important. Often breaks down to dealing with long- vs. short-term problems. • Hurricane prediction a good example of need to link model outputs with understanding of behavior (predictions tempered by possibility of being wrong – i.e., crying wolf).

28. Session C6:Tools • BE could consider setting up virtual centers from projects that are topically similar, perhaps toward the end of the program. These could address data and cultural issues discussed earlier • Distributed/mobile sensor networks needed on land.

29. Session C6:What should we know by 2010? • To what degree are some earth systems resilient to human perturbations of various magnitudes? • What patterns of human settlements are most resilient? • To what degree can policies be tuned to the spatial and temporal scales of social and environmental processes? • How can multiple policies be implemented such that they are compatible for various ends?

30. Session C6:What should we know by 2010? (cont.) • A slew of examples in which dynamics of a system learned through a BE project have improved function/ management of that system. • Be able to explain what Biocomplexity is to congress. • Be able to demonstrate how biocomplexity perspective complements traditional perspectives in the natural sciences.

31. Session C6:What should BE look like in 2010? • A $1 billion / year permanent program.

32. Breakout Sessions C7 and C8:The Future of Biocomplexity Question 1. • Forecasting versus predicting • Agent-based modeling approaches are promising techniques • Historians are important experts than can help inform modeling activities. • How well can we explore the probabilities of outcomes (game theory, market models) • Expert judgment/Delphi techniques can be valuable approaches • View human “systems” as part of the natural system  they are not different • Need to address assumption of forecasting goal. It is likely that there are multiple states. These can be framed as scenarios and placed in risk assessment framework. • Need to reconstruct models that might consider optimization. • Is there a lack of a common theory that ties human systems to natural systems? Resilience, panarchy, tipping points. • Detailed historical studies. Lack of “experiments” that integrate human and natural systems.

33. Sessions C7 and C8 Question 2. • Answered above. All to the list cited. • Faster computers. • Methods that integrate social science, and bio- and physical science approaches (surveys and models) Question 3 • Advance ability of disciplines to communicate with one another. • Have humans more integrated into the natural system. • More unified theory of how humans integrate natural systems.

34. Sessions C7 and C8 • By 2010, we must be able to test BE hypotheses with greater certainty • Going beyond discovery-based science? • By 2010, we must have more, well-trained scientists that can take on cross-cutting BE challenges.