This grant supports awards for the second of three Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials (SM3) Scialog conferences, to be held in September 2025. The SM3 Scialog brings together top early-career faculty from diverse fields to develop collaborative research projects addressing critical challenges in material sustainability. At these conferences, scientists work together in small teams to craft research proposals that are then presented and reviewed, with the most promising ideas receiving seed funding. The first SM3 conference in 2024 was exceptionally successful. Participants generated a record of 36 research proposals, with seven selected for funding. The Sloan Foundation supported four of these projects focused on reducing resource-intensive mining processes, utilizing minerals from unconventional sources, and improving mineral separation techniques. This grant will support 10 awards to SM3 Scialog Fellows on winning proposals, with each Fellow receiving $66,000. While some projects may go on to secure additional funding in the future, the primary goal of this effort is building lasting networks among early-career researchers. A final SM3 conference is planned for 2026.

This grant supports the Colorado School of Mines' new Native American Mining and Energy Sovereignty (NAMES) initiative, which addresses the issue of critical mineral development in close partnership and engagement with Tribal communities. This topic is particularly salient, as over 70% of domestic lithium, cobalt, copper, and nickel reserves in the US are located on or within 35 miles of Tribal reservations. The NAMES initiative aims to bridge the gap between critical mineral mining expertise and Tribal sovereignty, acknowledging the complex history of resource extraction on Tribal lands. The grant will fund three key components, guided by an Advisory Council that will shape the initiative’s strategic direction. First, personnel support is provided for the NAMES Program Director position and a Program Administrator role for three years. Second, support is provided for the annual NAMES Symposium, which will be hosted on Tribal reservations and in close collaboration with Tribal leadership to ensure community participation. Finally, research outputs will be produced on the topics related to Indigenous communities and critical mineral development, including journal articles, policy papers, and opinion pieces. This support complements external funding provided to involve undergraduate and graduate students in the NAMES initiative.

The lack of regional and inter-regional transmission capacity to connect clean electricity generation sources to areas of high demand is a major challenge to the clean energy transition. Numerous studies have estimated that transmission capacity will need to increase dramatically to take full advantage of the growth of clean electricity sources that are planned to come online in the near future. However, building new transmission lines has proven to be politically and economically challenging. With this grant, researchers will study innovative approaches to increase electricity transmission capacity that go beyond building traditional new power lines. The team will explore two promising alternatives. The first is upgrading current power lines with advanced technologies to increase carrying capacity. The second is utilizing non-traditional rights-of-way—such as highways, rail corridors, and pipeline routes—to install high-voltage DC (HVDC) transmission lines, which can be more efficient for long-distance power transmission. The project consists of three phases: a comprehensive assessment of policy, economic and technological factors; in-depth analysis of specific interventions like HVDC installation; and creation of a multi-institution research consortium to advance this work. The team includes experts from multiple universities in behavioral science, public policy, energy modeling, and engineering, and industry practitioners from utilities and transmission operators will serve in advisory roles. The team plans to continue building out and expanding this interdisciplinary research network as it grows over time.

This grant provides support for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine's (NASEM) to implement a new Forum on Energy Systems Transformation and Decarbonization.  Unlike standard consensus committees, NASEM Forums offer the flexibility to respond quickly to emerging issues related to energy system decarbonization through workshops and other activities. The Forum will host annual public workshops, smaller closed meetings, and produce various outputs, all while providing networking and engagement opportunities for participants. Topics for Forum discussions may include issues like energy innovation, regional impacts of energy transformation, and the behavioral and economic dimensions of energy policies. In each of the next three years, the Forum will host at least one major public workshop and one smaller, closed meeting of Forum members. It will produce a summary workshop report following each public meeting, along with additional digital and print outputs as relevant. Beyond these tangible products, the Forum is designed to provide interactive engagement, networking, and community-building opportunities for the wide range of participants who join these events.

This grant renews support for the National Bureau of Economic Research's Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy (EEPE) initiative, an effort that connects researchers with policymakers on energy system decarbonization. The EEPE’s annual conference has become a cornerstone event for energy economists. This grant supports research paper generation and conference operations through 2028, when EEPE will reach its 10th anniversary. The program solicits policy-relevant research papers that might otherwise not be pursued, selecting six papers annually for presentation at the Washington, DC conference and then in subsequent publication by the University of Chicago Press. The conference attracts approximately 100 attendees, evenly split between policymakers from federal and state agencies and from academics. Early-career researchers value the opportunity to pursue policy-relevant questions, while government staff appreciate this rare, structured engagement with researchers. In this next cycle of funding, resources are provided to support graduate student researchers in attending this meeting. The grant will fund 24 original papers, four conferences, four published volumes, conference organization, and support for graduate student participation.

The ocean is the world’s largest carbon sink, absorbing approximately 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions. As more carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, the ocean becomes more acidic and less able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A growing number of scholars are investigating a process called Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE), whereby alkaline (basic) natural substances, such as pulverized and calcium-rich rocks, are released into the ocean to increase the capacity for further carbon dioxide absorption. OAE is one of the main approaches among a larger portfolio of technologies and interventions know as marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR). mCDR is a nascent and growing field, with numerous technologies being studied and pilot-tested for deployment. Questions remain, however, about the technical feasibility and societal acceptance of mCDR interventions. At this early juncture, understanding community perspectives on OAE and mCDR technologies is critical. This grant funds a collaboration led by Sara Nawaz, Director of Research at the Institute for Carbon Removal at American University and Alicia Karspeck, founder and Chief Technology Officer at [C]Worthy, a Focused Research Organization.  Together, they plan to conduct a series of in-depth community engagement activities around two upcoming OAE field trials, one in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and the other off the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.  Grant funds will support Nawaz, Karspeck, and their team of two early-career scholars to engage stakeholders in each region to better understand public attitudes towards OAE and mCDR. The team will establish Community Advisory Boards consisting of participants from local environmental non-governmental organizations, Tribal communities, industry associations, port authorities, and local government representatives who can engage a broad swath of community stakeholders. In each locale, the team will organize two workshops to surface community concerns, address questions related to the OAE field trials and discuss priorities for how mCDR might impact these regions. In addition to providing information on OAE and mCDR approaches, the workshops will feature interactive scenario exercises designed to prompt deliberations about the future of larger scale mCDR. In addition to generating scholarly outputs, the team plans to publish a “Community Priorities on mCDR” document for each study region and will produce a toolkit for other researchers looking to recreate this in-depth model of community engaged research. The team will also develop and share insights about how social scientists can effectively engage with Focused Research Organizations in community-engaged research.