Geological and Geotechnical Engineering in the New Millennium Opportunities for Research and Technological Innovation (2006) / Chapter Skim
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5 Institutional Issues for the New Agenda in Geoengineering
5 Institutional Issues for the New Agenda in Geoengineering
Pages 149-172
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From page 149... ...
, universities, and the geoengineering industry to advance this agenda and create a new vision for geoengineering. In some cases these institutions may have to change the way they do business to advance this agenda (i.e., to resolve critical knowledge gaps, advance the use of new tools in geoengineering, and expand geoengineering practice to address the complexity of current problems)
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From page 150... ...
This is among the lowest success rate of any program in the engineering directorate and NSF as a whole. The diminishing of resources available for unsolicited proposals is counter to the general trend of increased funds for engineering directorate research over those two years and reflects an overall trend in NSF toward foundation-directed research initiatives (e.g., sensors, nanotechnology, and biotechnology)
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From page 151... ...
. While various NSF programs are formulated to cross disciplinary lines, and while cross-disciplinary research is encouraged by NSF, cross-disciplinary activity does not appear explicitly as a proposal evaluation consideration.
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From page 152... ...
It may be beneficial to include program directors from other federal research-funding entities in panels as this could facilitate leveraging NSF program funds by cofunding research with other federal and state agencies. These enhancements to panel composition offer an added potential benefit in that NSF-funded basic research in geoengineering will become more visible to those agencies and their associated researchers, opening new doors now all but shut to geoengineering researchers.
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From page 153... ...
Such collaboratories may also increase the visibility of the research effort and broaden public support for NSF-funded research. In fact, through both the National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites (NGES; http://www.unh.edu/nges/)
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From page 154... ...
. The earliest example of a shared-use collaboratory in geotechnical engineering is the National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites (NGES)
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From page 155... ...
, public-access data archives that will use a common data dictionary, and provisions for piggy-backing by secondary investigators on NEES experiments, in which secondary investigators can install instrumentation packages and collect data for their own purposes on a primary experiment. In return for providing substantial funds for facility development, NSF requires that there be no fee for using NEES sites.
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From page 156... ...
GEOLOGICAL AND GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM ment of this collaboratory concept. However, because of the large commitment of funds required to maintain the NEES collaboratory (an annual overhead cost of approximately $20 million, much of which was diverted from other civil and mechanical systems programs, including geomechanics and geohazards)
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From page 157... ...
Institutional Issues for the New Agenda in Geoengineering -- Will a collaboratory lead to better and faster advances than alternative methods of collaboration at a lower cost? -- Is the project multidisciplinary?
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From page 158... ...
5.2 UNIVERSITIES 5.2.1 New Approaches to Geoengineering Education The challenges the geoengineering profession faces in reforming geoengineering education should not be underestimated. The best and brightest students will be attracted to areas of science and engineering where they believe they can make new discoveries and inventions.
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From page 159... ...
recent endorsement of this concept, this remains a controversial topic, with many civil engineers, particularly in the municipal sector, opposed to it. Students who begin their undergraduate programs without a commitment to study engineering already in place or who are reluctant to forego the intellectual excitement and freedom of a general education are at present simply dismissing engineering as a career choice.
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From page 160... ...
Students who know as they begin their undergraduate educations that they wish to practice architecture are provided with a clear, and highly focused, five-year educational path to professional practice in the bachelor of architecture program, although it is frequently the case that even these students still plan to complete a program of study that includes a master of architecture degree. Students with different academic and life backgrounds, arriving at the decision to begin architectural training at later stages in their lives, are readily accommodated by this system, and their other degrees are respected by this system; students are not required to forego the freedom of a liberal arts and science undergraduate education as they emerge from high school.
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From page 161... ...
asked that engineering programs specify their own goals and objectives and provide evidence that they were continually improving their attempts to meet these goals. Accreditation of engineering programs is jointly managed by ABET and traditional professional societies, for example, by the American Society of Civil Engineers for geotechnical engineering and the Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration for geological engineering.
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From page 162... ...
These ad hoc arrangements often carry with them problems associated with financial and scholarly credit for the resulting research. Junior faculty members attempting to cross disciplinary boundaries run the risk of lack of recognition for their efforts and contributions, while university financial systems are often not set up to properly account for shared overhead for laboratory facilities.
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From page 163... ...
. Other important initiatives that professional societies like ASCE, Association of Soil and Foundation Engineers, and American Rock Mechanics Association can use to help close the gap between the state of knowledge and the state of practice include the use of quality criteria in awarding construction contracts and peer review and value engineering design practices.
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From page 164... ...
Traditional design-bid-build contractual arrangements are widely acknowledged as a barrier to innovation, particularly in public works contracting that makes up the largest segment of the civil con struction industry, and geoengineers are often unable to participate fully in newer design-build and build-operate-transfer arrangements. Many engineers still embrace the ethic that their job is not to influence public policy directly but merely to provide impartial analysis and present the facts and let the decision makers guide the course of public policy.
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From page 165... ...
. The consensus seems to be that financial pressures on consulting firms forced to compete for work on a low-bid basis and the design-bid-build contractual arrangements, wherein risks associated with a failed design innovation are passed on to the innovator without commensurate reward for success, are the primary hindrances to innovation under this contractual arrangement.
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From page 166... ...
Traditionally, most industry-supported geoengineering research in the United States has been through public and quasi-public entities, including the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Highway Administration, Transportation Research Board (through the National Cooperative Highway Research Program) , and various state transporta tion departments.
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From page 167... ...
, along with lingering environmental issues associated with past practices, may make the mineral extraction industry more amenable to supporting broader geoengineering research initiatives. The geoengineering community must find a way to engage the extractive industries in broad research relevant to their concerns.
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From page 168... ...
, a primary means of support for earthquake engineering research for over 20 years, and in the allocation by Congress of $88 million for initial funding of the NEES program. EERI and NEHRP include social scientists as well as engineers and focus on societal issues of response, recovery, disaster planning, and community resilience, as well as hard engineering technology and geological science issues.
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From page 169... ...
With respect to industry funding, the financial benefits of geoengineering research, including the benefits of both closing the gap between research and practice and additional research, must be made apparent to the entire geoengineering community. Again, professional societies can play an important role in this task through recommendations and guidance for continuing education, qualifications-based selection for both design and construction services, and best practices such as peer review and value engineering.
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From page 170... ...
NSF, historically a key player in invigorating action related to issues of workforce diversity, must work in new ways to remotivate the geo engineering community to address this problem. NSF has supported and strongly encouraged diversity through its program expectations and its funding priorities for the last 30 years, with a commitment that has exceeded any other federal research funding entity.
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From page 171... ...
Renewed effort and innovative approaches are required to create a diverse geoengineering workforce representative of the general population. 5.5 INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES FOR A NEW AGENDA IN GEOENGINEERING This chapter spelled out some of the institutional issues associated with achieving our vision for geoengineering in the twenty-first century and makes recommendations for actions NSF can take to overcome some of the barriers created by these issues.
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From page 172... ...
Geoengineering practitioners have the opportunity to make geoengineering a leadership profession in engineering. Bold projects that address pervasive societal imperatives will attract excellent practitioners and daring students.
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