Organization:Grand Challenges Scholars Program

Overview

The NAE Grand Challenges Scholars program is a combined program with five components that are designed to create and inspire our next generation of engineers to face a lifetime of problem-solving. These challenges range from simple to extreme and must be solved to create a stable and safe life for future generations. It is anticipated that each participating institution will develop its own specific realization of the five components, and students who complete the program successfully will receive a distinction of Grand Challenge Scholar endorsed by their institution and the National Academy of Engineering.

The Grand Challenge Scholar Program has two levels of organization and thus two levels of assessment are needed to ensure consistency with the core principles set forth by the founding committee.

The NAE Committee on Engineering's Grand Challenges has identified 14 areas awaiting engineering solutions in the 21st century:

1. Making solar energy economical
2. Provide energy from fusion
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle
5. Provide access to clean water
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure
7. Advance health informatics
8. Engineer better medicines
9. Reverse-engineer the brain
10. Prevent nuclear terror 
11. Secure cyberspace
12. Enhance virtual reality
13. Advanced personalized learning
14. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

A 6-minute video discusses the different aspects of the 14 areas in need of engineering solutions. Finding solutions to the Grand Challenges will positively affect life socially and economically. By creating a 1 - 2 minute video that shows how engineering serves the needs of society, you can be entered to win $25,000

The NAE released a report that goes into great detail describing each Engineering Grand Challenge here.

Purpose

Our next generation of engineers require more diverse knowledge than ever before. The purpose of NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program is to make engineering students ready to solve the grand challenges that our society currently faces. The Grand Challenges Scholars program is looking at these ambitious tasks:

•  Create new capabilities
•  Provide pragmatic solutions for basic human needs
•  Develop new entrepreneurial opportunities
•  Reinvent human interactions
•  Transform systems thinking
•  Be the architects of a sustainable society
•  Be mindful of unintended consequences
•  Connect technology with society

The Five Competencies of Future Engineers

The five components of the Grand Challenge Scholars Program that will prepare future engineers include:

1. Project or research activity engaging a GC theme or challenge. Working to solve the NAE Grand Challenges is the motivation for the GCSP. Each GC scholar must participate in a substantial team or independent project relating to a Grand Challenge theme or specific Grand Challenge problem. 

2. Interdisciplinary curriculum. Bridging engineering to other disciplines is essential for solving the NAE Grand Challenges. An “Engineering-Plus” curriculum should be devised that prepares engineering students to work at the boundary between an engineering and non-engineering discipline, such as public policy, international relations, business, law, ethics, human behavior, risk, medicine and the natural sciences. However, this must be more than simply double majoring or picking up a minor in a non-engineering discipline. Examples that span these disciplines with a coherent theme are Engery and the Environment, Sustainability, Uncertainty and Optimization, etc. 

3. Entrepreneurship. Implementing innovation is central to technology development. Each GC scholar must participate in a curricular or meta-curricular component on the process of translating invention and innovation into market ventures. This may be either risk-taking ventures for business or introducing technology for not-for-profits that scale global solutions in the public interest. 

4. Global dimension. Global awareness is necessary for working effectively in an interdependent world. Students may participate in a curricular or meta-curricular component that instills elements necessary to develop innovations in a global economy, or address ethical issues of global concern. Domestic activities that stress global or cross-cultural implications may satisfy this component.

5. Service learning. Working for the benefit of others is the foundation of a civil society. Students may participate in a curricular or meta-curricular component that deepens their social awareness and to heighten their motivation to bring their technical expertise to bear on societal problems. Programs such as Engineers Without Borders, or Engineering World Health may be adapted to satisfy this component.

The Program

The 14 Challenges

The 14 engineering challenges of the 21st century: 

1. Advance Personalized Learning: A growing appreciation of individual preferences and aptitudes has led toward more “personalized learning,” in which instruction is tailored to a student’s individual needs. Given the diversity of individual preferences, and the complexity of each human brain, developing teaching methods that optimize learning will require engineering solutions of the future.
2. Make Solar Energy Economical: Currently, solar energy provides less than 1 percent of the world's total energy, but it has the potential to provide much, much more.
3. Enhance Virtual Reality: Within many specialized fields, from psychiatry to education, virtual reality is becoming a powerful new tool for training practitioners and treating patients, in addition to its growing use in various forms of entertainment.
4. Reverse Engineer the Brain: A lot of research has been focused on creating thinking machines—computers capable of emulating human intelligence— however, reverse-engineering the brain could have multiple impacts that go far beyond artificial intelligence and will promise great advances in health care, manufacturing, and communication.
5. Engineer Better Medicines: Engineering can enable the development of new systems to use genetic information, sense small changes in the body, assess new drugs, and deliver vaccines to provide health care directly tailored to each person.
6. Advance Health Informatics: As computers have become available for all aspects of human endeavors, there is now a consensus that a systematic approach to health informatics - the acquisition, management, and use of information in health - can greatly enhance the quality and efficiency of medical care and the response to widespread public health emergencies.
7. Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure: Infrastructure is the combination of fundamental systems that support a community, region, or country. Society faces the formidable challenge of modernizing the fundamental structures that will support our civilization in centuries ahead.
8. Secure Cyberspace: Computer systems are involved in the management of almost all areas of our lives; from electronic communications, and data systems, to controlling traffic lights to routing airplanes. It is clear that engineering needs to develop innovations for addressing a long list of cybersecurity priorities
9. Provide Access to Clean Water: The world's water supplies are facing new threats; affordable, advanced technologies could make a difference for millions of people around the world.
10. Provide Energy from Fusion: Human-engineered fusion has been demonstrated on a small scale. The challenge is to scale up the process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way.
11. Prevent Nuclear Terror: The need for technologies to prevent and respond to a nuclear attack is growing.
12. Manage the Nitrogen Cycle: Engineers can help restore balance to the nitrogen cycle with better fertilization technologies and by capturing and recycling waste.
13. Develop Carbon Sequestration Methods: Engineers are working on ways to capture and store excess carbon dioxide to prevent global warming.
14. Engineer the Tools of Scientific Discovery: In the century ahead, engineers will continue to be partners with scientists in the great quest for understanding many unanswered questions of nature.

What is Unique about GCSP

The Grand Challenges Scholars Program teaches engineers very important skills in learning how to deal with the biggest problems facing our society. This program is different because it explicitly defines the most relevant problems to our public and allows students across campus to participate. Students are able to collaborate with other engineers that are active in the scholarship program.  Not only will this program teach engineering students the skills necessary to solve problems, but it will also raise awareness around the most important worldly challenges and will inspire young engineers to tackle those challenges. The Grand Challenges Scholars Program is also working towards implementing a program for K-12 that will equip students to become engineers. 

Randy Atkins, Founder of the 14 Grand Challenges for the National Academy of Engineers says, "This provides students with a vision of what they can do with engineering and how they can change the world."

The Office of Science and Technology Policy is interested in seeing the program across many different campuses across the country. Check out this article to see what Washington has to say about the NAE!

Summit Series on the Grand Challenges

The goal of this summit is to change the way students become educated. 

1. Enhance student interest in engineering and science.
2. Increase the visibility and importance of engineering and science to society.
3. Underscore the importance of recognizing that engineering education must by coupled to policy, business and law and must be student-focused. 
4. Enhance student interest in engineering, science and technology entrepreneurship.
5. Foment future collaborations of interested scientists, engineers, policy makers and researchers in business, law, social sciences and humanities needed to successfully address these complex societal issues.

Impact Achieved For Students and Campus

Founding Grand Challenges Campuses:

• Duke University, Pratt School of Engineering
• The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
• University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering

 
Additional campuses currently involved with the NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program:

• Arizona State University, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering
• Australian National University
• Bucknell University, Bucknell College of Engineering
• Catholic University of America, School of Engineering
• City University of Hong Kong
• Clemson University, College of Engineering and Science
• Colorado School of Mines
• Drexel University, College of Engineering
• Duke University
• Florida Gulf Coast University, U.A. Whitaker College of Engineering
• George Fox University, College of Engineering
  
• Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Engineering
• James Madison University
• Lafayette College, Lafayette College
• Louisiana Tech University, College of Engineering and Science
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT School of Engineering
• Miami University, College of Engineering and Computing
• National Chiao Tung University
• National University of Singapore
• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
• NC State University, College of Engineering
• North Dakota State University
• Ohio State University
• Oklahoma State University, College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology
• Olin College of Engineering
• Peking University
• Rochester Institute of Technology, Kate Gleason College of Engineering
• Saint Louis University
• State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Department of Environmental Resources Engineering
• Taylor's University, School of Engineering
• Texas A&M University
• Tulane University
• University of Bridgeport
• UC San Diego, Jacobs School of Engineering
• University of Delaware, College of Engineering
• University of Denver
• University of Idaho, College of Engineering
• University of Iowa, College of Engineering
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County, College of Engineering and Information 
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• University of North Dakota
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Portland
• University of Rochester, Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering
• The University of Tennessee, College of Engineering
• The Univerity of Texas at Austin, Cockrell School of Engineering
• University of Toledo, College of Engineering
• University of Utah, College of Engineering
• University of Virginia, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• West Virginia University, Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
• Western New England College, School of Engineering
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

History of the Program

In an effort to shift the paradigm of engineering education, Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, and the University of Southern California's Viterbie School of Engineering developed the Grand Challenges concept. In 2009 the NAE began endorsing the program, allowing it to grow internationall as it has today. 

In addition to endorsement by the NAE, former President Barack Obama was presented with a letter of commitment to grow the program to include 122 engineering schools internationally. At this time, GCSP has been implemented in over 40 universities worldwide.