AccelNet Implementation Phase I: Accelerating coordination across research and policy networks to halve nitrogen waste (iN-Net)

The International Nitrogen Network (iN-Net) will drive cross-cutting research to help countries meet ambitious policy goals of dramatically cutting nitrogen losses to the environment. Nitrogen pollution - fueled primarily by excess fertilizer and manure on agricultural land - is a major threat to the environment and human health. Once lost to the environment, nitrogen makes almost every environmental problem worse: from air and water pollution, to biodiversity loss, stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change.

Policymakers have started to take notice: a growing number of national, regional and global efforts have coalesced around the goal of halving nitrogen losses to the environment, and countries will need to develop national action plans to make this goal a reality. Building effective plans requires the scientific community - in collaboration with a range of stakeholders from the public and private sector - to fill some fundamental scientific gaps: a lack of data in key areas; ineffective governance options; a fragmented understanding of the links between nitrogen and climate action; and weak communication between scientists and other communities. iN-Net will address these gaps by creating working groups of scientists and stakeholders to shape and drive research agendas on data, governance and nitrogen-climate interactions; establish a data platform that will enable countries to measure their progress and identify effective actions; and implement a workforce development program to train the existing and next generation of nitrogen scientists to be capable communicators and do policy-relevant research.

It will cement US intellectual leadership on this important issue, while designing and implementing data, models, governance options and other approaches that will be critical for humanity to improve its complicated relationship with this essential resource and major pollutant.

We propose to establish the International Nitrogen Network (iN-Net), an international network of networks, to address the fundamental gaps between research, policy and action that are currently impeding the development of national action plans to successfully operationalize the ambitious global goal of halving nitrogen (N) waste by 2030. These gaps include: inconsistent and incomplete data to establish a baseline and measure progress; a paucity of effective governance options to implement plan measures; and a fragmented understanding of the links between N and climate action.

Cutting across all of these gaps is an inability to effectively communicate across scientific communities and stakeholder groups. Under the aegis of the the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI) and in collaboration with a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded global center on N innovation as well as several regional and international scientific and science-policy networks, we will: 1) Create three transnational and transdisciplinary working groups with broad stakeholder participation to tackle the major gaps (data, governance, climate, and communication) for translating the halving N waste goal into national action plans; 2) Establish a collaborative data platform to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for N data and indicators for researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders to establish baselines and measure progress towards the implementation of national action plans; 3) Initiate several workforce development initiatives, including policy fellowships that will allow scientists and students to experience and contribute to global governance deliberations on N.

In short, iN-Net will transform INI from a convener of the international N research and stakeholder community to a catalyst for novel research and policy approaches to help translate halve N waste targets into national action plans.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.