Citizen science projects advance scientific inquiry by enlisting large crowds of volunteers to clean, code, and categorize large datasets in areas where humans still outperform machines. Though the usefulness of citizen science is no longer seriously in doubt, obstacles remain that prevent it from reaching its full potential. A lack of common standards for citizen science data projects makes it difficult to share or repurpose data; regulatory barriers inhibit federal agencies from using citizen science effectively; and the lack of a common repository of information on citizen science projects prevents researchers from taking advantage of what has already been learned. This grant supports efforts by the Commons Lab at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to ease some of these barriers. Over the next two years, a team led by Anne Bowser will join with members of the citizen science community to spearhead a grassroots effort to develop common metadata standards; create a database of citizen science projects, develop a platform and API to facilitate citizen science data-sharing, examine the ethical and regulatory barriers to using unpaid volunteers in research projects, and conduct outreach to federal agencies and policymakers about the way in which citizen science can and is being used to further the aims of federal initiatives.

This grant provides support to the Yale Program on Financial Stability (YPFS), a research and professional training program that exposes financial regulators to the best current theory and global practice in macroprudential regulation. Grant funds provide three years of support for the program’s summer school. Supported activities include a two-week Systemic Risk Symposium that brings regulators together with senior researchers to analyze past cases of regulatory intervention in such areas as asset crashes, liquidity crises, and the shadow banking sector; an academic conference on Fighting a Financial Crisis in which program participants serve as discussants of new, cutting-edge academic research; a Ph.D. dissertation workshop to expose students to regulatory datasets and career paths; and a Financial Crisis Forum that brings in highly regarded financial regulators like Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, and Stanley Fisher to discuss macroprudential regulation and the challenges and obstacles that stand in the way of effective regulatory intervention during financial crises.   Led by Professor Andrew Metrick, the Yale Program on Financial Stability is the only program of its kind. Its continued success holds the potential to build bridges between the academic and regulatory communities, spur further research, and equip the next generation of financial regulators with the tools they need to better fight future financial crises.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer Institute is arguably the most important and influential annual event for empirical economists. This grant to NBER provides partial organizational and administrative funding for the Summer Institute for the next three years. The Summer Institute is a three-week academic festival. Over 2,400 economists participate in at least one of over 50 workshops. Directors of NBER’s 20 programs organize overlapping tracks that cover labor, aging, health, and other traditional subjects. In addition, special working groups meet at the Summer Institute to exchange ideas, discuss recent scholarly work, and identify promising new topics for study. Many prominent research results are first presented at the Institute, some in preliminary form that benefit from the intense discussion both during and after a workshop. There are also popular plenary sessions, such as the annual Feldstein Lecture and the Sloan-funded Methods Lecture. In addition to general support for the Institute, grant funds will be used to videotape sessions for wider distribution and for scholarships that underwrite the participation of emerging scholars from underrepresented groups.

This grant continues support for a series of initiatives by the Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) to develop, produce, and disseminate new science plays. Each season, EST commissions between 10 and 20 new science-themed scripts from emerging and established playwrights; hosts its annual First Light festival, which celebrates science-themed plays with staged readings, workshops, and other events; sponsors events to bring the theater and scientific community together; makes seed grants to regional theaters around the country to develop science-themed plays with local writers; and produces a mainstage production of one play addressing scientific or technical themes or featuring a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. Grant funds provide support for these activities for three years.

The year 2019 will mark the culmination of 10 years of scientific discovery by more than 800 scientists from 40 nations who form the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO). New discoveries are emerging about deep life, about the diversity of ways that oils and gases form, about mineral evolution, and about the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere. This grant supports the creation of a Synthesis Group within the DCO, led by Dr. Marie Edmonds of the University of Cambridge, U.K., which will take responsibility for ensuring that the project delivers on its commitments and that the whole of the project promises to be more than the sum of its parts. Edmonds and her team plan to explore several different possibilities for intellectual synthesis of the Deep Carbon Observatory’s work. Possibilities include a dynamic model of deep carbon in Earth, a diamond-themed synthesis that uses the popular gemstone to tell us as much as possible about deep carbon, a place-based synthesis that uses geographic or geological location to tell as much as possible about deep carbon, a mineral evolution synthesis, and an “Earth in five reactions” synthesis that tells the story of deep carbon through major chemical processes like serpentinization. Over the next two years, grant funds will allow Edmonds and her team to explore and prioritize these different approaches to synthesis as well as develop synthesis-related projects for potential future support.

Funds from this grant continue support for the Engagement Team of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), which provides internal and external communications services to the international community of DCO geoscientists. Led by Sara Hickox at the University of Rhode Island, the Engagement Team provides content for the Deep Carbon Observatory website, publishes a newsletter and blog, compiles an up-to-date bibliography of DCO publications, maintains a contact database on the approximately 800 DCO researchers, oversees network-wide events, spearheads public engagement efforts, provides graphic design services for DCO researchers, and works to ensure smooth intra-DCO communication of goals, priorities, and achievements. Grant funds support the continuation of these activities for an additional two years. In addition, Hickox and the Engagement Team will provide support to the newly created Synthesis Group of the DCO, which focuses on synthesizing the diverse research accomplishments of DCO researchers in anticipation of the project’s contemplated end in 2019.