Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Grand Challenges Research Teams Announced in Mellon Grant

February 10th, 2017

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $1.4M to date to support a unique approach to global grand challenges research, scholarly publishing and communication at Purdue.Purdue Scholarly Publishing, a division of Purdue Libraries, and the Purdue Policy Research Institute have announced the final proposals selected for funding under the grant “Breaking Through: Developing Multidisciplinary Solutions to Global Grand Challenges.”

Four proposals have been selected for funding, which was made possible through a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The four projects are as follows:

• Big Data Ethics Detecting Bias in Data Collection, Algorithmic Discrimination and “Informed Refusal”: Led by Chris Clifton, professor of computer science, this research team is addressing grand challenges through a multidisciplinary study of the ethical issues involved in the use of big data and predictive algorithms to make decisions affecting individuals.
• From Global to Local to Global: Attaining Long Run Sustainability in U.S. Agriculture: Led by Thomas Hertel, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics, this research team is leveraging existing knowledge, models and data to understand and communicate the interplay between global change and local sustainability of U.S. agriculture in the context of alternative national, state and local policies affecting agricultural productivity and environmental quality.
• Global Temperature Goals to Avoid Climate Tipping Points: A Serious Game to Support Serious Decisions: Led by Manjana Milkoreit, assistant professor of political science, this research team is engaging in a first-of-its-kind project that merges a creative knowledge co-production process between scientists and decision makers on urgent questions in global climate change governance and a scientific assessment of the effectiveness of this science-policy interaction.
• Decision Support for Flood Risk Mitigation: Automated Data Collection and Visualization Tools: Led by David R. Johnson, assistant professor of industrial engineering and political science, this research team is developing automated data collection tools and interactive decision support systems to tackle the grand challenge of increasing coastal flood risks and address the need for better risk communication.

This three-year program enables multidisciplinary teams to tackle grand challenges in new ways. It also embeds policy experts, publishing professionals, and libraries faculty in the scholarly research and communication process, in order to provide researchers with expert assistance in communicating results directly to the public and key stakeholders.

The Scholarly Publishing Division of the Purdue University Libraries, the Purdue Policy Research Institute in Discovery Park, the College of Liberal Arts and the Purdue Systems Collaboratory are partners on the grant.

Peter Froehlich, director of Purdue Scholarly Publishing, and Laurel Weldon, director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute, are principal investigators.

Both lead PIs are pleased with the outcome of the competition, which was intense.

“So many excellent proposals were submitted in response to our call for proposals, it ended up being a difficult choice. The four proposals selected are outstanding, and we are excited to be able to launch these innovative, interdisciplinary projects,” Weldon says.

Froehlich also highlighted the unique aspects of the program, including the integration of communication planning — how key stakeholders will receive results — from the onset of each project.

“Getting actionable new information to stakeholders sooner, in the most well-targeted, intelligible, digestible and sharable manner possible, will allow us to better impact the challenges we face,” he says. “We’re thrilled to be working with top researchers on this innovative approach to scholarly communications.”

For more information, visit grandchallenges.lib.purdue.edu/index.php.

Researchers and media can direct questions to Froehlich and Weldon at humstem@purdue.edu.