Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) hosted a 3-day workshop on October 10-12, 2022 with a broad group of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines and from a variety of institutions and companies around the general theme of climate science, sustainability, and clean energy. The SIAM Convening on Climate Science, Sustainability, and Clean Energy engaged the scientific community in the identification and articulation of emerging research needs related to these areas, and explored what foundational long-term research and plans are needed over the next decade. Recommendations were made to the National Science Foundation and other federal research and development agencies.
Given that robust and active support of research and education is necessary to anticipate future conditions, accelerate clean energy innovations, and increase the resilience of the United States, scoping workshop had as goals to: (i) gain a better understanding of the challenges and problems affecting research innovation and translation gleaned from discussions across the various sectors and communities; (ii) provide input and recommendations for addressing the challenges and opportunities identified; and (iii) identify mechanisms to encourage the growth and health of the research workforce.
Discussions were organized around the six main goal areas:
Convening participants wrote and presented nine area-specific whitepapers, which produced a report representing the major challenges, themes, and suggestions.
Recommendations
There were nine recommendations that emerged from the SIAM Convening on Climate Science, Sustainability, and Clean Energy. These thrusts identified various objectives for the methodologies for climate science, engineering solutions towards sustainable solutions to mitigate the consequences of climate change, using social science to help design effective solutions and integrate community feedback, and educating the workforce to support these directions.
Convening participants consisted of over 50 researchers and professionals from the range of disciplines and fields that contribute to and are involved in clean energy, sustainability, and climate science research. These researchers and professionals were from various career stages to ensure that a broad and diverse range of perspectives was gathered. Anonymized participant data can be found in the full report.
The steering and planning committee of this scoping workshop consisted of 9 subject matter experts, the Principal Investigator, a liaison from Knowinnovation (KI) who guided the design and planning process, and a project assistant from SIAM. For the workshop, KI provided a team of professionals who specialize in guiding and accelerating academic, scientific, and interdisciplinary innovation to facilitate the discussions and the generation of ideas.
Flaviu Cipcigan IBM UK Limited
Matthew FarthingU.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Ken Golden University of Utah
Lea JenkinsClemson University
Hans Kaper Georgetown University
Flavio Lehner Cornell University
Lou Nadeau ERG
Jody ReimerUniversity of Utah
Suzanne WeekesSIAM
Victor Zavala Tejeda University of Wisconsin-Madison and Argonne National Laboratory
The final report provides a synthesis of the major challenges, themes, and recommendations related to climate science, sustainability, and clean energy.
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Nine recommendations emerged from the SIAM Convening on Climate Science, Sustainability, and Clean Energy.
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