SEAD CALL FOR WHITE PAPERS on ISSUES FACING THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SEEKING to ENHANCE COLLABORATION AMONG THE SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, ARTS and DESIGN

The US National Science Foundation -funded Network for Sciences, Engineering, Arts and Design (SEAD: http://sead.viz.tamu.edu/) is issuing an open International Call for White Papers from the community. The Principal Investigator is Carol LaFayette of Texas A&M University.

We are seeking to survey concerns, roadblocks and opportunities, and solicit recommendations for enhancing collaboration among sciences, engineering, arts and design. These position papers will be submitted as part of a report to NSF and the community from the SEAD network in the summer of 2013. With grateful appreciation for US funding, we recognize that activity connecting the sciences, engineering, arts, and design is international and, furthermore, that global involvements are essential in today’s economy. Therefore we are interested both in what US collaborators can learn from experiences in other countries, and vice versa, and also in how to foster collaborations that bridge beyond regions to nations. Cultural cross-fertilization via the SEAD network – whether from disciplinary, organizational or ethnic perspectives – is a vital component of our purpose and goals.

A SEAD White Paper Steering Committee has been assembled (http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/sead-white-papers-steering-committee/), co-chaired by Roger Malina (ATEC, UT Dallas and IMERA, Aix Marseille University) and Carol Strohecker (Center for Design Innovation, University of North Carolina system). Submitted White Papers will be reviewed by the steering committee and posted on the open SEAD White Paper Web Site <http://sead.viz.tamu.edu/white_papers.html>. Authors of white papers will be invited to join the SEAD White Paper Working Group.

White Papers must address one significant roadblock or opportunity, in terms of the SEAD focus areas or a relevant topic of the authors’ choosing. SEAD focuses include: research and creative work, learning and education, productive partnerships across disciplines and organizations, and culture and economic development. Although a White Paper may be submitted by a sole author, we encourage collective authorship and group submissions. White Papers must include recommendations for actions to move the community forward. We welcome submission of already existing advocacy papers or reports. White Papers should be short: text up to 10 pages total, including all materials and type size no smaller than 12; video no longer than 10 minutes.

The Deadline for initial one-page Abstracts is August 15, 2012.
Submissions invited on the basis of the Abstracts will be October 15, 2012.

You may submit a White Paper via email to PI Carol LaFayette. If your submission is a video, email the link to its location in an open archive (such as uTube, vimeo, etc.) Note that White Papers in both text and video formats must include explicit recommendations addressed to specific stakeholders.

b) We welcome links to existing reports, which will be added to our compilation of precedent sources internationally <http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/bibliography/>.

If you wish to be kept informed of the activities of the SEAD network, please email Carol LaFayette.

For further information or questions about White Papers in text or video format, contact Carol Strohecker.

Additional Guidelines for White Papers are available at http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/white-paper-guidelines . We welcome innovative ways of using online media to articulate the arguments of the White Papers. If you wish to explore experimental publishing approaches, contact Roger Malina.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.1142510, Collaborative Research: EAGER: Network for Science, Engineering, Arts and Design (NSEAD) IIS, Human Centered Computing. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.