Our subject is how the experience of Americans with a certain funding criterion, “broader impacts” (and some similar criteria) may help in... Show moreOur subject is how the experience of Americans with a certain funding criterion, “broader impacts” (and some similar criteria) may help in efforts to turn the European concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) into a useful guide to funding Europe’s scientific and technical research. We believe this comparison may also be as enlightening for Americans concerned with revising research policy. We have organized our report around René Von Schomberg’s definition of RRI, since it seems both to cover what the European research group to which we belong is interested in and to be the only widely accepted definition of RRI. According to Von Schomberg, RRI: “… is a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in our society).” While RRI seeks fundamental changes in the way research is conducted, Broader Impacts is more concerned with more peripheral aspects of research: widening participation of disadvantaged groups, recruiting the next generation of scientists, increasing the speed with which results are used, and so on. Nevertheless, an examination of the broadening of funding criteria over the last four decades suggests that National Science Foundation has been moving in the direction of RRI. Sponsorship: European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme grant number 321400. Show less
Alfred Caldwell was among the first full- time American professors Mies van der Rohe hired at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Many... Show moreAlfred Caldwell was among the first full- time American professors Mies van der Rohe hired at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Many have admired Mies’s architecture since the 1920s, and know that his ideas were also transmitted as a professor, first at the Bauhaus in Europe and then as Director of the Department of Architecture at IIT. Caldwell, a practicing landscape architect and protégé of Jens Jensen, is perhaps less widely known, but was a major influence on IIT’s program especially in the areas of construction, landscape, and architectural history. Caldwell completed a Master of Science in City Planning with a thesis entitled The City in the Landscape: A Preface for Planning, which can be considered a manifesto of both his professional ideas and IIT’s planning pedagogy. In addition to his own works, Caldwell collaborated with Mies and architect Ludwig Hilberseimer, Director of City and Regional Planning at IIT and former Head of Building Theory at the Bauhaus, on the design of built works which left behind artifacts representing the ideal of “the city in the landscape.” This communication examines the broader perspective on urban design influenced by the symbiotic disciplines of architecture, city-regional planning and landscape as manifested in the individual and collaborative built work and pedagogy of Caldwell, Hilberseimer, and Mies. Show less
Stephen (Steve) E. Fienberg (1942-2016) was an eminent statistician, whose impact on research, education and the practice of statistics, and... Show moreStephen (Steve) E. Fienberg (1942-2016) was an eminent statistician, whose impact on research, education and the practice of statistics, and many other fields is astonishing in its breadth. He was a visionary when it came to linking many different areas to address real scientific issues. He professed the importance of statistics in many disciplines, but recognized that true interdisciplinary work requires joining of the expertise across different areas, and it is in this spirit that he helped steer algebraic statistics toward becoming a thriving subject. Many of his favorite topics in the area are covered in this special issue. We are grateful to all authors for contributing to this volume to honor him and his influence on the field. During the preparation of this issue, we learned about the tragic killing of his widow, Joyce Fienberg, during the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, PA on October 27, 2018. This issue is dedicated to their memory. Show less