The global change SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training (START) will facilitate and support collaborative regional research networks that engage developing country scientists in investigating critical issues of global environmental change in an integrated, multi-disciplinary manner. In addition, START will develop and coordinate activities that enhance dissemination of accumulated knowledge and expertise in innovative ways and that foster new avenues for international collaborative research, partnership and exchange.
They will assign priority to interactions between coupled human and natural systems and application of science to ecosystem management and decision-making. Support will be given in the form of competitive sub-awards through annual calls for proposals that will give priority to proposals from multi-disciplinary teams that investigate critical regional environmental change issues, as articulated in science plans for Africa and for the Asia-Pacific region. START will also, in collaboration with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP), support a workshop involving scientists and other stakeholders from across Africa to refine the AfricanNESS science plan, especially strategies for designing and conducting regional integrated studies of global environmental change in Africa.
Primary projected outcomes are expected to include: a direct contribution to global change science and change detection; enhanced understanding of regional impacts and consequences of global change; improved ability to use such information for planning and decision-making in developing countries; and an improved and expanded group of scientists in Africa and Asia-Pacific who partner with scientists in the United States, Japan, and other developed countries and who are being integrated into international global change research networks.
START’s system of regionally based centers in Africa and Asia-Pacific, together with the International START Secretariat based in Washington, DC, promote research-driven capacity building that enhances regional capabilities to respond effectively to global environmental change. To accomplish this, START engages scientists from developing countries and national and regional institutions in integrated, multi-disciplinary research and assessments on issues of sustainable development related to global environmental change, and START connects these scientists and institutions with the broader international community engaged in global environmental change research. In addition to engaging scientific communities directly, START promotes communication for action at the interface of science, policy and practice. Efforts supported by this 3-year grant award from the USGCRP agencies, through NSF, strategically advance integrated regional research on the coupled human and natural environmental systems, inform decision-making on issues such as adaptation to climate change and catalyze collaborations between US and non-US scientists. These activities aim to: 1) strengthen and enhance capacity for global change research, observation, assessment in developing regions; 2) contribute to both the USGCRP and international global environmental change programs; and 3) inform national, regional and international policy. A major component of the grant involves a set of sub-awards made for peer-reviewed research projects in Asia-Pacific and Africa. During this grant, the START Grants for GEC Research in Africa program supported 27 research projects in 24 African countries. The projects, all concerning the theme of climate change, agriculture, and food security, were topically and geographically diverse. They addressed food production and livelihoods in estuaries, river deltas, and lagoons in northern, western, and southern Africa; agriculture and conservation at the forest fringe in humid areas; and livelihoods derived from agriculture and tourism in semi-arid areas. In addition to the principal investigator for each project, 48 co-investigators provided unique skills from varied disciplines within the natural sciences and social sciences. Many projects included graduate students and junior scientists who received hands-on training in research methodologies; several projects incorporated local stakeholders in research design and implementation. Such stakeholders included subsistence farmers, women leaders, local youth, tribal chiefs, and other community members whose homes, villages, and livelihoods are being affected by changing conditions and pressures. START grantees consistently indicate that participation in the GEC grants program strengthens international collaborative partnerships and expands their African research networks. High-quality outputs of GEC grants-supported projects also inform follow-on actions at local, national, and regional levels. Grants concluded with a Research and Learning Forum to present research, and catalyze knowledge sharing, creative strategizing and future collaboration through face-to-face interactions among recipients of 2011-2012 GEC grants and other regional and international experts. Targeted training was designed to strengthen future research design and promote increased and more effective communication between communities of science, policy and practice. In Asia-Pacific, 26 sub-awards were made to support collaborative research projects on global environmental change issues by scientists of 22 different countries through a contract with the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN). Principal Investigators developed multi-national networks of co-investigators to identify and address current needs and emerging challenges in the context of climate change. Projects engaged with communities whose livelihoods were threatened by climate change and developed tools for community-based adaptation. Additional activities supported by the grant include the Africa Research Partnership Enhancement Awards, which support efforts of African scientists to develop new partnerships or to enhance existing partnerships with US scientists and institutions. Awards are intended to stimulate and advance collaborative, integrative global environmental change research in Africa; A Southeast Asia Science-Policy Dialogue, organized by the International START Secretariat in partnership with APN and the SEA Start Regional Center in Bangkok, Thailand during 19-21 of July 2012 which engaged APN National Focal points and associated national government agency representatives to promote informed decision-making to reduce global environmental change vulnerability; and the establishment of two new START Regional Fellow Positions in Asia – one at the Southeast Asia START Regional Research Centre (SEA-START RRC) at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and one at the Temperate East Asia START Regional Center (TEA-START RC), located at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Both Fellows are tasked with a portfolio of various program-based research, education and training responsibilities as well as a mandate to champion the broader interests of START in the region through awareness raising, outreach ad partnership-building efforts. Long-standing and continued support to START from the USGCRP agencies enables development and implementation of innovative programs and activities that integrate knowledge generation with knowledge sharing in ways that can effectively inform, and be informed by, action.
