
NSF Org: |
SMA SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | September 4, 2020 |
Latest Amendment Date: | September 9, 2022 |
Award Number: | 2037958 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Mary Feeney
SMA SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
Start Date: | September 15, 2020 |
End Date: | August 31, 2023 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $163,564.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $163,564.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1 NASSAU HALL PRINCETON NJ US 08544-2001 (609)258-3090 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
Princeton NJ US 08544-2020 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | Science of Science |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
What will happen to science in the wake of COVID-19? Between present work disruptions and a forthcoming recession, we expect significant challenges for federally-funded science. COVID-19 catches scientists in a double bind of both strained budgets and social distancing in the laboratory that make sustaining research programs much more complicated than before. The virus? varied impact in different states also complicates researcher?s collaborations across different institutions. The tough decisions that scientists make now to navigate the current crisis will have an impact on the coming generation of scientists? careers, research, and experiments. To examine COVID-19?s emerging impacts on science, we look to a case of federally-funded big science disrupted by the current crisis: planetary and space sciences. These scientists and engineers collaborate on long-term projects that build and command spacecraft that explore the solar system. Through online participation and interviews, we will analyze how planetary scientists build the tools and maintain the relationships they need to get the job done, while largely confined to their homes. Building upon previous NSF-supported research, we will develop a repertoire for action, indicating what scientific communities can do to weather the storm, keep lines of discovery open, maintain investments in diversity and in infrastructure, and organize successful lobbying efforts. In this way we can help to ensure the broadest possible outcomes and benefits from public investment in science during the crisis.
This project examines how the relational work of infrastructuring science hold up under extreme economic crisis, and social distancing. The research will examine how researchers plan for the future in uncertain times, how computer-mediated communication impacts decision-making, and how economic and social crises impact diversity initiatives in the sciences. Responses to financial crises shape the social and intellectual organization of science at the level of everyday practice and over the long durée. Further, moments of crisis help surface the often-invisible social relations that scientists depend upon to get the job done. The present COVID-19 crisis, however, makes past periods of uncertainty appear trivial in scale and scope. This project undertakes a rapid-response one-year observational period among the planetary science community, seizing the opportunity to follow a scientific community in depth at its time of greatest potential transformation during a period that promises long-term consequences of decades or more. This federally-funded science is experiencing considerable effects of the crisis, with laboratories are shut down or open under social distancing guidelines, expanding the timeline and expense associated with project delivery, and disruption to established patterns of collaboration. Further, planetary scientists will produce their decadal survey this year: a community engagement study conducted once every ten years to determine the coming decade?s priorities for spacecraft development and scientific investment. As a result, decisions with lasting import will be made in ephemeral, fleeting video-conferenced meetings and text messages, available for a digital ethnographer to attend on the spot but impossible to retrieve after the fact. Using virtual ethnography and online interviews this project will follow three future missions -- the developing Europa Clipper, a proposed mission to Neptune, and an Interstellar Probe ? and this year's planned Decadal Survey. The project will also examine the social media conversations that now constitute frontstage chatter among scientists. Examining these ephemeral and undocumented critical interactions will allow the researchers to document a crucial year in the history of the field and to develop novel insights into the relationship between governance and scientific outcomes, discovery, and impact. They will also develop a science funding continuity toolkit for publicly-funded scientists to take action, indicating what scientific communities can do to weather the storm, keep lines of discovery open, maintain workforce diversity, and maximize scientific impact in unprecedented times.
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.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Keeping big science funded in the public sector over the long duration necessary to achieve results is always a challenging proposition. We are two social scientists at Princeton who were completing work on an NSF grant about such funding challenges when the Covid-19 crisis hit. Suddenly, the challenges we knew from our work in the 1970's, 1990's, and 'aughts were magnified many-fold. How would scientists be able to maintain funding and support for their missions throughout the joint economic and medical crises? How would they plan for the long-term when the near future was so uncertain? How would sole reliance upon virtual tools impact their decision-making and deliberative processes? And given the ways in which remote work and caretaking responsibilities can disproportionately impact women and minorities in the profession, what impact would the pandemic and lockdown period have upon workforce diversity?
The RAPID grant allowed us to pivot quickly, following emerging trends in our fieldsite while building upon longstanding relationships to guarantee depth of findings. We used the tools of participant observation and digital ethnography, respected methods in sociology of science. We followed three future missions (prospective spacecraft to visit Neptune, Io, and Europa) as they attempted to pull together mission proposals and hardware in lockdown. We followed and participated in the 2021 Decadal Survey process, conducted entirely virtually for the first time. And we observed the grassroots-driven, scientist-led diversity and inclusion initiatives that sprung up in our fieldsites.
Our findings enable publicly-funded scientists to take action in periods of crisis, indicating what scientific communities can do to weather the storm, keep lines of discovery open, maintain workforce capacity, and minimize adverse impacts upon science in unprecedented times. To disseminate our findings to the community of interest, we published papers in conjunction with scientists and engineers at technical conferences such as the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Geophysical Union, on the topic of the challenges of support over th elong duration. We provided feedback to aerospace and space science workforce regarding remote work policies and practices. Based on our observations, we received a follow-up grant to examine the effects of remote and hybrid interactions upon a science community's deliberation and prioritization practices. submitted a book proposal and have recently completed a manuscript on funding continuity under conditions of uncertainty, which we expect to assist in communicating our findings more broadly beyond the space sciences.
We are grateful to the RAPID grant structure for the opportunity to observe these emergent issues in the field, and to the scientific community we worked with for the opportunity to leverage the unusual period that was 2020-2022 for greater insights into the functioning of the big sciences in the 21st century.
Last Modified: 02/07/2024
Modified by: Janet A Vertesi
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