Researchers throughout the state of Idaho will join forces in the coming years to blur scientific and institutional borders thanks to a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).
The project funded by the grant will use research from many scientific disciplines to create a program that can be utilized by anyone to help predict the possible impacts of urban expansion on the environment.
“This proposal is going to be specifically focused on landscapes somewhat in transition and using our populated areas of the state … to give us some test cases and ways of looking at how changing landscapes affect the environment and how that affects the benefits the environment provides to society,” said Rick Schumaker, assistant project director of EPSCoR at UI.
Schumaker said researchers from every major university in the state will work together on the project to accomplish more, and avoid overlapping research.
“Idaho developed a team that crosses the state — Boise State, Idaho State, University of Idaho and others — to propose what might be done to help Idaho for the next five years increase our capacity to do good science and build a foundation for more and more science-related to ecosystems,” Schumaker said.
He said EPSCoR awards are given to states that are eligible based on how much funding they receive from the National Science Foundation in other capacities.
“EPSCoR is the only state-based program that the National Science Foundation funds,” Schumaker said. “These EPSCoR awards are awarded to states that are eligible, and the states that are eligible are the ones that receive a relatively small fraction of the total NSF research budget that goes across the nation.”
Schumaker said the goal is to invest money in Idaho in ways that are consistent with state and institutional priorities.
“To help us as a state become more competitive for research funding and research projects funded by the federal government from a variety of sources,” Schumaker said.
Allistair Smith, associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and one of the developers of the EPSCoR funded project, said it’s important to know that the $20 million grant is not a University of Idaho grant, but a state-wide grant for science research. He said the idea is to change the culture of competing versus collaboration in research.
Smith said the “One Idaho” group or research team is trying to ignore the institutional boundaries.
“It’s not UI people or BSU people, we’re all part of one team and as we’re moving forward with it that’s what we’re trying to build on,” Smith said. “For a state like ours we can’t compete, we need to work together.”
In addition to crossing institutional borders, the new EPSCoR project will utilize a variety of scientific fields in order to create a program that can not only be universally understood, but will also use the research from a variety of fields to create a more thorough experiment.
“One person that we’re working with from BSU said he was excited because we’re going to use this award to help create a new kind of scientist,” Schumaker said. “That really means that we are going to have people from visual arts, social science, political science, ecological science, biology … we have many different people that are coming from many different disciplines and speak many different languages professionally in those disciplines.”
Schumaker said this collaboration will create a new kind of science language in addition to the research being done that will allow future scientists to communicate effectively across disciplines.
John Anderson, assistant professor in Virtual Technology and Design at UI, also assisted with the development of the project idea. His discipline will be utilized to create the visual component of the project. As field research and observations of the way urban expansion affects the environment is collected and analyzed, the information will be used to create a virtual representation of the physical world. Anderson said the virtual world can then be manipulated to see what might happen if the same changes occurred in the physical world.
“It’s a program that can be used by politicians, land managers, project developers, parents, students, schools … anyone, to understand the complex research and science that is occurring,” Anderson said.
He said the ultimate goal is to create a science that people understand and can be utilized in decision-making and expansion of urban environments.
The test areas where physical research will be done in a variety of disciplines including biology and social sciences are Boise/Treasure Valley, Coeur d’Alene/Post Falls and Pocatello/Idaho Falls.
Anderson said eventually, many years from now, the idea is that the technology developed from this project could be used to create a complete virtual world that can be manipulated in realistic ways that represent what happens in the physical world.
“This is really a capacity building project,” Schumaker said. “The goal is not to come to the end of the five years and be done. This grant will create opportunities for new research, expansion, and other projects. It never really stops.”
Smith said the goal is to help Idahoans understand the physical world and provide a better understanding of the relationships between people and the environment.
“This isn’t a project where we will do all this research and at the end hand it to the public and say ‘This is what we learned,'” Smith said. “That doesn’t help people understand. We want to keep people involved throughout the process so they can learn and understand as we go and at the end it will make a lot more sense than if we just gave them the results.”
The EPSCoR grant also provides for the addition of 11 new faculty members located at UI, BSU and Idaho State University.
In addition, Schumaker said dozens of student projects and internships will be created through this project, with many opportunities for first-year students. He said there will also be an emphasis on recruiting students from groups underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Although the project is still in the planning and organizational phase, Schumaker said there will be many opportunities for students to get involved beginning this fall.
Smith said he is excited to begin work on the project because of the borders it will cross both institutionally and across disciplines.
“It’s fun and exciting. It’s that whole concept that we’re a lot more together than the sum of our parts,” Smith said. “We can push research, push extension and education to new levels because we’re working together.”
Kaitlyn Krasselt can be reached at [email protected]