NSF Award
2416920
This collaborative project, Maine-FOREST, supports incubating research themes, teams, and products in a scientific topical area that links to research priorities identified in the state’s approved Science and Technology (S&T) Plan. Maine-FOREST will deliver a diverse, sustainable, and statewide research, education, and innovation incubator that builds strategic research and development (R&D) capacity. This will fuel the dramatic growth of the state’s forest-based economy and the rural communities it supports. Four interconnected research themes in the project reflect strengths and opportunities within the jurisdiction that align with the state’s science and technology, climate action, and economic development strategic plans. The project also will leverage prior investments in Maine’s research infrastructure, including federal awards and philanthropic gifts, and relationships with national laboratories and industry. Novel participatory and inclusive approaches will nurture community resilience and strengthen the capacity of diverse groups of natural resource-dependent rural and Indigenous communities to respond to current and future socio-ecological threats and opportunities. This new, partnership-based infrastructure will help to create a far more inclusive approach to promoting sustainable improvements in Maine’s forest-based research infrastructure, R&D capacity, and national competitiveness. Innovative approaches to STEM education and workforce development will reinforce the research themes in the project while also connecting with project activities in a companion EPSCoR Collaborations for Optimizing Research Ecosystems RII award (OIA-2412130).<br/><br/>Maine-FOREST’s four convergent incubator themes include Environmental AI & Informatics, Cellulosic Nanofiber (CNF) Bioproducts, Rural & Tribal Resilience, and Smart Rural Development. Statewide incubator teams associated with each theme aim to close key knowledge gaps. Maine-FOREST will advance one's ability to characterize and utilize CNF within an advanced manufacturing context. New AI/ML-driven technologies will be applied to assess core ecosystem attributes across broad spatial-temporal scales. Innovative, culturally inclusive approaches will be applied to participatory systems dynamics modeling to better leverage stakeholder networks. Research on the program’s collaborative culture and processes, including a cohort-based approach to student engagement, will yield new information regarding convergent science. Deliverables from Maine-FOREST include, in addition to typical scientific outputs, increased research capacity with support for 20 early-career faculty, a new forest sector business development faculty position, and an actionable dashboard of metrics related to forest, economy, and workforce capacity. Maine-FOREST is led by the University of Maine. Project partners include an emerging research institution (the University of Southern Maine), two public, primarily undergraduate institutions, two private colleges (Colby and Bates), and strategic non-profits across the state (the Maine Development Foundation, Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, Maine TREE, the Rural Aspirations). Maine-FOREST will directly support at least 45 faculty (45% early-career), 85 undergraduate students, 10 graduate students, and 4 postdocs. The project will potentially benefit 200 K-12 educators and nearly 2,000 students in 15 schools will directly benefit. Ten diverse rural and economically distressed Maine communities, and a Tribal Nation, will also be directly engaged. This project is funded by the NSF EPSCoR Research Incubators for STEM Excellence (E-RISE) Research Infrastructure Improvement Program. The E-RISE RII Program supports the development and implementation of sustainable broad networks of individuals, institutions, and organizations that will transform the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research capacity and competitiveness in a jurisdiction within a field of research aligned with the jurisdiction's science and technology priorities.<br/><br/>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.
