 run this event but before we pass over to Nathan Meyer to introduce speakers and move through our program I just wanted to mention a few brief points. We are inviting you if you have time to engage in some conversations in breakout groups after the event and for that reason you need to actually have your Zoom client installed. It seems hard to believe that anyone wouldn't given that we have all in the last few months become Zoom experts but I mentioned that if it is a problem you can always engage via your phone or tablet if you are on a computer that you don't have complete control over and you don't have a Zoom client installed. We are recording this event and the recording will capture both anything that you might say but only in plenary not in any breakouts as well as anything that you type into the text chat window and on that topic as we are moving through our speakers we're going to invite you to add questions to the chat box. Everyone is muted on entry just to keep this vaguely organized but the chat box is your friend if you have never used it before down in the bottom you will find a button marked chat which is a clue. We are going to go through our process and at the end of the event as I say if you have the time and the enthusiasm to engage in the conversations we will be opening that and Nathan will talk a little bit more about that in a moment. I think that's everything I need to cover right now so let me just pass over to Nathan at this point. Alright well thank you Andy it's really wonderful to have your team you and Anne-Marie and Donalyn and others guiding us on this journey and I also want to acknowledge the collaboration and support that Lisa Maupin who manages events in ORED and the research communications team has been providing. Their help has really been essential to help us get to this point today. So with that I just want to say good afternoon to everyone. For those of you whom I've not met my name is Nathan Meyer. I serve as assistant vice chancellor for research in the office of research and economic development or ORED at Nebraska and as Andy intimated we have a lot to accomplish this afternoon including hearing from a very distinguished lineup of speakers and then learning about UNL's grand challenge identification process. So I'm pitching in just to help Andy and his colleagues introduce speakers today. I want to share a rundown of our agenda for this afternoon but before I do I couldn't help myself I had to share one slide with you all. So during the last several days some of you have reached out to ask questions like what is a grand challenge or what is a grand challenge theme. So this is my response. Those questions remind me of my colleagues in the Center for Brain Biology to tell me about how difficult it is to diagnose a concussion and in part that difficulty of diagnosis is compounded by something like 84 different definitions of concussion. So I suspect that in a few minutes my friend Michelle Popowitz is likely to tell us that there are that at least that many variations of university-led grand challenges too. But here you can see how I suggest we might think about grand challenge themes at Nebraska now I haven't vetted this widely this is the first time I'm sort of taking this working definition to the streets so we'll see if it sticks based on today's discussion. And I'll leave this I won't read this definition to you but I'll leave it up on the screen so you can read it to yourselves as I'm just going through our agenda. So this afternoon you're going to hear remarks from Chancellor Ronnie Green our external speaker our guest today is the UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research and Executive Director of the UCLA Grand Challenges Michelle Popowitz. Following that we'll hear from Dr. Bob Wilhelm Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development then Dr. Elizabeth Spiller our Executive Vice Chancellor and then finally Dr. Mike Bame our Vice Chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. After we hear from each of those speakers Andy's going to come back and then walk us through our grand challenge identification process. We will then give Chancellor Green the opportunity to share any concluding remarks or observations that he wants to make near the end if he's so inclined. And if time permits we will facilitate question and answer if the formal portion of the program ends before 4 p.m. As Andy said we have added an additional 30 minute interactive session to today's meeting just because there's been so much interest in this conversation today we wanted to sort of take advantage of our folks online our friends online today and start to know what they're thinking about with respect to grand challenges. Any questions entered into the chat box that we are not able to address in real time if time allows we will moderate a Q&A session. If we run out of time we'll hold those questions and create an online set of frequently asked questions that you'll be be able to access later following that event. So with all of that said it is now my pleasure to introduce the most staunch supporter of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and its faculty students and staff that I know and that's Chancellor Ronnie Green. So Chancellor I'm ready to hand off to you. Thank you very much, Nate. And I really appreciate the opportunity to visit with all of you. I'm delighted today to see the tremendous participation in today's session I understand from our friends at ORED that over 300 over a year's worth I think you said 366 participants are engaged or have put forward to be engaged in this afternoon's conversation representing well over 150 units all across our University. And to start this afternoon and not to put too fine of a point on it I guess I can't underscore enough what I'm about to say. I want each of you to know how incredibly humbled, grateful and proud I am that so many of you especially in these times that we're living in are coming together to have this dialogue that's a very important one for our University and the future as we're experiencing all so much uncertainty in life both from the impact of COVID-19 and certainly hearing the hearing now societal events and upheaval broadly in our country in the world. I also want to take a moment and pause right now to acknowledge the tragic events that have unfolded across our country in the past a couple of weeks now the senseless death of George Floyd and too many other Black lives has certainly shocked all of us and as you'll hear me say in communications even later today certainly has shook me to my core personally. Unfortunately for many of other members of our community particularly those in our Black community these actions have been yet another steady and very stark reminder of the systemic the dangerous inequities that are rampant in our local national and global communities. Let me be clear this afternoon we can't progress toward our institutional goals of achieving excellence at Nebraska and establishing a culture here that will allow us to truly live that every person in every interaction is important for us if we don't correct them then act on the ways that we can offer our individual and our collective responses. Indeed it's my hope that the shared experiences we've had particularly over these recent last three months and these very circumstances of the last couple of immediate weeks they do serve here as a clarion call and a backdrop for the activities and the discussion and the dialogue that you're undertaking here this afternoon. It's been said that the role of the university is in to improve the human condition I know we all believe that. If you've heard me speak before you know I believe that this is especially true for our efforts here at UNL the state's comprehensive land grant research university. As the university for Nebraska our campus community does its trifold mission-based work every day whether that be through research through education through outreach through engagement and it's good work it's important work and it's essential work as we move forward but I'm calling on you today asking you to help us embark on a bolder and more intentional path. In February you'll remember at the state of the university address I showed you the two of the aims of the N 2025 strategic plan that we launched that they require us to think bigger and more strategically about how we work together on our campus and with our partners across the country and around the world to to do good. Our level thinking more intentional creative collaboration across our land grant mission areas is essential to that because as you will recall the second and the third aims of that N 2025 plan calling us to establish a culture here at Nebraska it's increasing the impact of our research and creative activity and to focus our research scholarship and creative activity and interdisciplinary ways to impact the world around us. These aims are going to require us to broaden and deepen our interdisciplinary research to develop new learning experiences and to connect with our communities here locally and beyond in different and more thoughtful ways. Doing so will enable us and our external partners and the public that we serve to more readily recognize our areas of collective strength and contribution in moving forward and I'll just draw a point to remind you if you weren't aware that in the N 2025 plan there's a direct call there that says that 50% of our strategic investments moving forward will be devoted to these areas of grand challenges that we're defining. In February announced that we'd be working in this calendar year in 2020 to fully define the sweep of these grand challenges for our universe and I asked ORED which they're doing here today to lead this process for the campus community to help identify two or three additional challenges beyond those that we've already declared and established previously and water and food security and early childhood education and in climate and resiliency of climate and to do that by the the fall beginning of the next academic year I think our thinking was that we would be able to do this kind of in concert with the past academic year of course we know what got ahead of us here in the last few months and we had to pivot our attentional way to dealing with the current COVID-19 crisis and unfortunately we're doing this in the summer to keep us on track and being able to reach that conclusion. I'm really pleased that ORED has partnered with No Innovation to implement a process here that you're going to begin experiencing that's flexible, that's participatory and that is inclusive and I hope that you will continue to engage and contribute your talent and your time in the weeks ahead that are being defined now to help us imagine this in bold and future with the Grand Challenge focus in moving forward. Your work this summer will help us establish these Grand Challenge portfolio priorities and that portfolio will serve for us pardon the term here but really is a north star for innovation and excellence in Nebraska in this next five years period to 2025 and beyond. I'm really pleased that we're pulling in expertise from outside the university that does have deep experience in this Grand Challenge kind of approach you're going to have the opportunity to hear from Michelle here shortly that will provide some perspective for us and some outside input. I'm very pleased you're going to be able to hear from from Bob and from Elizabeth and Mike later in the program today the relevance of this to our our tri-fold mission of the institution. I have to admit that when we thought about the Grand Challenges in the context of the N-150 Commission now two years ago and the 2025 strategy team in 2019 we certainly couldn't have imagined the the level of social change and crisis that we're currently living in. I don't think any of us could have fully imagined that. I know by now most of us like me sitting here in my home office or adjusted to where we're working in a different way going forward I will challenge you here to think about not only how but with whom you work and then to have the opportunity to move forward in interdisciplinary ways and in what way you can play a role in that in the future. I want you to think big. I'm channeling a little bit one of our former colleagues here it's not lost on me that today in Nebraska today if you were you were looking there was a photo stream at the bottom of Nebraska today that pointed to the new signage of Whittier the Prem S. Paul Research Center at Whittier School and I often remember Prem saying to us to think big to think grand and to think of the ways that we can contribute to solving these big wicked problems. I'll just close by saying a quoting Margaret Mead who once said that never doubt that a small group of thoughtful dedicated citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has. So again thank you for engaging today for what you're doing every day for our institution to make it a better place in a more impactful place please think big think grand and look forward looking forward to the dialogue so thank you for for investing today. Great thanks so much to you thanks for setting the stage for us really appreciated so with with all that said it's now my privilege to introduce my colleague and friend Michelle Popowitz. So as I mentioned Michelle is Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California Los Angeles where she also serves as Executive Director for UCLA's Grand Challenges Program. Michelle has been with UCLA since 2001 she started in the School of Dentistry but shortly about a decade or so later she was recruited to work for the Vice Chancellor of Research at UCLA. About a year and a half after that Michelle and a colleague started a pilot program to catalyze team research on their campus and this eventually blossomed into the campus-wide UCLA Grand Challenges Initiative. Today Michelle serves as an advisor to the leaders of UCLA's two Grand Challenges and given all this experience she's had she's frequently invited to talk about the UCLA experience with Grand Challenges first and foremost because theirs is really the first campus to commit to solve a specific Grand Challenge goal. So that's where I got to know Michelle on the speaker circuit I've learned a lot from her and I'm so thrilled that she was willing to take the time today to share with all of us so that we can all learn and try and do this Grand Challenge identification process a little bit better. So Michelle if you were here with us on campus or in Lincoln we'd offer you a warm husker welcome but instead I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for our virtual greetings today. So we look forward to hearing about your Grand Challenge experiences your observations and your advice for us. So Michelle please. Thank you so much Nathan. As you heard I'm sort of a Grand Challenge guru over the past eight years I've done a lot of talks to sell people on the idea of taking on Grand Challenges various lessons learned from my experience at UCLA and information learned from colleagues at other universities. This is the first Grand Challenge talk I've given since coronavirus changed our world which in itself seemed like a new context but add to that how we have watched in this belief horror and fear about the state of our country. I have to admit it made it harder to concentrate when preparing my remarks and really helping me figure out what to say but what kept me motivated and inspired is that with all that is going on so many of you have chosen to virtually gather to make a difference. Thank you Chancellor Green, EVC Spiller, Vice Chancellor Willem Vice Chancellor Bame and AVC Meyer for inviting me to help kick off your activity to identify up to three Grand Challenge themes. In the next 15 minutes I'll cover why we started the Grand Challenge initiative at UCLA, a few of our struggles and successes and some thoughts for you to consider as you pitch concepts for consideration. So how did we get started? Well we used my favorite technique for when you don't know what you were doing. We referred to our effort as a pilot project. My colleague Jill Rodel and I were convinced that UCLA could have a greater impact if we could get faculty to work together towards a common goal rather than frame as research questions actually frame as end goals. We thought this would be an easy task that in a few meetings we could pick some goals with seven-year time horizons and that everyone would get on board seemed very obvious that as non-researchers. Boy did we have it wrong. It took months after which we picked two. First making LA sustainable in terms of energy and water with the time horizon of 10 2050 so there goes the seven years idea. On the second one cutting the global burden of depression in half by 2050. People thought we were crazy and that these were marketing gimmicks but in fact seven years later we have made significant progress. On the sustainable LA Grand Challenge the city and the county of LA with an influx of UCLA faculty have each developed sustainability plans because goals are even more aggressive than what we had in ours. We serve as advisors or new senses to advisors raising their awareness about what laws and policies are needed to foster transitioning to a foster transitioning LA to 100 renewable energy and 100 local water. We convene regional leaders regularly to share progress and challenges like how the zoning laws which require parking spots and construction are creating obstacles to development and may not make sense in the current rideship economy. We are changing our relationship with external parties so they see us as a resource to provide research that is responsive to their needs whether that's to test incentives understand behaviors or develop a new technology. On the depression grand challenge to address worldwide increasing demand for services we are shaking up the treatment model exploring leveraging technology and train coaches and thereby freeing the most highly trained providers for those individuals who are most severely depressed or suicidal. Our proof of this concept was implemented at UCLA in 2017 with the students and we're now preparing to pilot the system in a local community college and within the UCLA health system. This past year we started the first in a series of studies to uncover the underlying genetic and environmental causes of depression focusing on the depression experienced by expectant and new mothers. We're going to start more studies for different diseases in the coming year. Prior to COVID-19 we had caught the attention of some influencers like singer-songwriter actor Sarah Bareilles and NBA player Kevin Love who have championed our cause because they have lived experience and want to be able to change. And since COVID-19 we have partnered with beyond phase the good initiative to provide free access to materials to lift moods during the pandemic. Honestly it's hard to believe how the brainstorming that took place around a boardroom table eight years ago was the kickstart for where we are. This experience has taught me that without a doubt we as human beings can have a big impact and when we come together the sky is the limit. So how did I a former lawyer and now seasoned administrator find myself on this path? Well I've always been driven to make a different in my youth this was accomplished through service but as an adult I got my feel-good fix by coaching and helping friends family and sometimes even strangers be successful with their boyfriend troubles home projects and job searches. My confidence and comfort grew with being a connector navigator and coach. What I found really rewarding was helping other people achieve their greatest potential. Some might call it a compulsion to fix things or my husband a busy body but I prefer the more positive framing of seeing potential in every person and every opportunity. This compulsion to help fix things and give people more opportunity was carried into the role that I have now as an assistant vice chancellor for research at UCLA. When I started my slate and portfolio was quite open my mission was to foster faculty pursuing more collaborations and submitting more proposals for funding. I saw that there were so many incredible researchers on campus interested in the same topics but they didn't connect with one another because there were no natural collisions they read different journals and attended different discipline focused conferences. They couldn't easily find one another. In addition I saw that there were pots of money available for certain topics but we weren't organized in a way to access those. And most frustrating of all to me was that we had all of this brilliance at UCLA and we changed people's lives every day but the public didn't seem to have an understanding of the role our campus played. We weren't effectively telling our story. Jill and I talked about this a lot. She had the idea we had to work on bigger problems. I had the idea we had to bring different disciplines together. We blended those two ideas to bring people together to select a specific big problem to solve and that's how UCLA Grand Challenges was born. That was eight years ago. The beginning was exciting and at times really frustrating. We didn't know whether what we were doing would work but we were determined to stay on the path. Over and over we had to tell people we were a startup. We didn't have a pot of money to hand out. We also faced pretty candid feedback from people who were uncomfortable with the uncertainty in our pilot process. We worked with really inspiring thought leaders and we needed to be flexible, thick-skinned and resilient because some of them might have been missing filters. We made a lot of mistakes and we learned a ton. It was not an easy path but we stayed the course because we were convinced that what we were doing was transformative and would demonstrate to the world how important UCLA and other research universities are to making our world better. What kept us going were the many signs and signals that we were on the right path. There were so many of these that we started referring to them as grand challenge charm and grand challenge magic like the White House being interested in grand challenges just as we were starting on our path like the fact that the champion for that initiative was an alum from UCLA and happened to be in Los Angeles the day we reached out to her like the fact that our campus was embarking on the quiet phase of a centennial campaign just as we were exploring this concept that's just the list from the first few months and the list goes on today. One important takeaway for me is that we all have more power to influence and change the way things are done than we might have imagined. Having this knowledge has empowered me to speak up and step forward when I see a different path or have advice to share and to own my place as a grand challenge guru something I probably wouldn't have done at an earlier stage in my career when I was comfortable being behind the scenes. Another important takeaway for me is how when we work together towards an ambitious common goal it's really rewarding and we can see and know that we had that impact. I don't know exactly what you all do each day but if you're like me it's not always immediately obvious how what we do on a daily basis can impact 100,000, 1 million or even 10 million lives. That's why I find the grand challenge framework is so inspiring. I have experienced firsthand the possibilities that open up when people and organizations center their purpose on solving specific grand challenges and now that I have gotten that taste I'm always looking for my next fix. It's why I do my best to answer every call from other individuals and organizations seeking to embrace the grand challenge framework. I want to help other groups become committed to partnering with their communities for greater impact and solving grand challenges. Hopefully I can help them avoid obstacles that we encountered. The path has not always been easy but giving up has never been an option. We've made dozens of mistakes because there was no defined path for us to follow. Fear didn't stop us. We have had to make hard investment choices in terms of money and time. We must continually remind ourselves to strive for good enough rather than perfection and importantly what we have done has exceeded our own expectations in what we dreamed was possible. UCLA is making the world a better place in a way that the public will see and feel because we are providing the ultimate service by bringing together brilliant and creative people across two problems that seem almost unsolvable and I'm convinced that UNL will do the same. You chose to pursue a career in academia. You're involved with innovations, the discovery of new knowledge and changing our understanding of the world and coming up with insights about how to make it better. This commitment to knowledge generation and discovery keeps you together. To be where you are you may have had to fiercely compete, move across the country, engage in turf battles, push the limits of time and resources and experience highs and lows with funding decisions. You have great influence because you are an expert in your field. You teach the next generation of leaders and you explore unanswered questions. You also know what it feels like to face what seems impossible and then experience the high that accompanies exceeding your own expectations. You have ideas for how to make the world a better place and with your grand challenge initiative it's a chance to show the public what UNL does and how much value you add to your community and the world. It's really exciting to be starting an ideation phase. You are getting to pitch where you can make your mark. Whether or not you already have an idea to propose I want to give you some questions and a framework to help test and strengthen your concept. Let's start with number one is expertise. Think about UNL's expertise. What is it that you do here better than most places? It can be a particular research area or maybe it's a trait like being right size for interdisciplinary research. In the case of UCLA we thought we were going to have six grand challenges when we started so neuroscience and environment and sustainability were easy picks for the pilot because we wanted to draw more attention to these areas of strength. Once you have your area of expertise in mind narrow your focus. Once you have what you want to do is think about what issues problems or solutions fit under that umbrella. We actually developed three ideas in neuroscience and three ideas in environment and sustainability before naming our two grand challenges. Next you should do a layperson check. Would your neighbor or cousin who's not an expert in your field care about these issues problems or solutions? If not how might you reframe them so they would? The reason this is important is that it helps you make sure you know how to tell your story better and it opens the possibility for funding streams outside of your typical funding pot and that leads naturally to the fourth question that I would want to have the answer to if I were choosing your grand challenges. Is there an obvious funding source for this set of issues problems or solutions? While the public impact is obviously important one of the important drivers for your initiative is to increase your campus's research expenditures. You want to pick something that makes that funding path a little easier or if it's not going to be easy you want something your campus is willing to take a risk on with the goal of increasing funding for the topic as a whole like we did with depression. Next why now is there something occurring now that makes this the right time to focus on this problem issue or topic? Maybe the topic is related to what's going on either with COVID-19 or systemic racism or inequality. Maybe there's a new capability or understanding that unlocks potential for new solutions in your field. The reason this is important is that your funders are going to be choosing between a lot of priorities. You need to make the case why they should invest in this topic right now. Six, consider whether early partnership makes sense. Are there particular people groups or organizations that specifically care about this topic area? Can you imagine engaging with these groups before you have firmly identified your topic or issue? We did not do this at UCLA. Indiana did with its third grand challenge responding to the addiction crisis but if we were starting a third grand challenge now at UCLA I would push to make this an essential component. Engaging with partners early is the way we can create a shared purpose and share commitment to solve the problem. It's an important engagement strategy. While it may not be required for your program I suspect that it would make your project or theme more enticing for your decision makers because it would serve the dual purpose of potentially branding UNL's engagement in community, industry, and global partnerships a related aim of the 2025 strategic plan. Finally as a last step once you've thought through these questions you want to refine and take a fresh look to consider whether your framing should be adjusted so you can make the case that UNL is the place to lead the effort for solutions in this particular issue or topic. I ran through these questions or suggestions really quickly so I'll share them with Nathan in case you want to refer to them again. Don't worry if you can't answer them all right now answering even a few of them will help you define your pitch or in academic speak your proposal. You can do this. You are research rock stars. You just need to think big in picking your targets. Be thoughtful in making your case and deliver it in your plans. I know you have what it takes and don't forget you have the benefit of learning from others experiences and mistakes. There's a community of people from other universities helping each other through these processes. Daily I see how the grand challenge approach specifically committing to solve a seemingly intractable problem serves to galvanize individuals and organizations to join in the effort. It inspires the people around us to do their part and we need that. We need to partner with our communities to solve the issues that matter most to us. Leveraging our knowledge and understanding to help inform the path forward. I hope I'm leaving you eager to let the grand challenge charm do its magic on you your team and UNL. Thank you. Thanks so much Michelle that was wonderful I really appreciate the the time and care you took to share your personal story to share observations lessons learned from others including some of our Big Ten sister institutions and to give some practical advice as a takeaway so thanks a lot. It's now my honor to introduce my boss Dr. Bob Wilhelm UNL's Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development is going to speak a bit on how the notion of grand challenges relates to the mission to the research mission of the University of Nebraska Lincoln. So Bob. Thanks Nathan and hi everyone I'm really glad I could have a few minutes to talk with you today and to reflect on both the grand challenge process and how it relates to our research mission and of course the mission of the University. I'm really excited about the turnout today and I think that that that reflects the diversity and engagement that we see in research, scholarship and creative activity across UNL and I really think that this kind of engagement is is what will help us go to a next level in terms of collaborative and interdisciplinary work the kinds of things that we've charted both in our N-150 and also our N-2025 plans. The other thing I'm really excited about is I think that this is going to give us all a chance to to stretch our thinking to dream big and into times to probably to get into zones that are a little bit beyond our comfort but I think that also is a chance for us to learn in different ways and to really chart a course for UNL for the future. So why does why does this matter? I think you've heard a lot from Michelle about why it matters and from Ronnie but you know one of the things that I really am interested in is what the opportunity is here to coalesce and to connect the talent of the university across all of the disciplines from the arts and humanities to journalism and architecture to law and policy, the social, behavioral, educational, life and physical sciences and to engineering and all the different disciplines that I also forgot to mention. I think that this connection that we can work at it will raise the profile of the university and it will also be as we push through and we identify these themes that will help people beyond the campus to recognize our priorities and to understand where we have the most expertise and strength in our talent and by promoting collaboration, innovation, creative work that will help us to diversify both the intellectual portfolio of the campus but also as Michelle was talking the growth of our funded research will I think will come along with this. I know that the breakthroughs that there'll be breakthroughs are required for this in terms of the topics that we think about. These topics will be complex. We know that they'll be at the interface of different disciplines and I really look forward to seeing how we work together because I think some of the things that will happen are just beyond our imagination right now but I'm really excited to see how this turns out and I also think that as Ronnie had talked about at the beginning this the university really focuses on impacting our community, on impacting our world and that's a I think an important opportunity for us to think about as we try to identify what might be these upcoming things and then finally this is going to offer an opportunity for our students, our faculty, our partners, our staff to all work together in more significant ways in different ways than we've worked together in the in the past and I really look forward to new strengths and interests in partners that will develop as we work through this so I'm going to look forward today to watching what arises in terms of our conversation but also what kind of themes we coalesce on and I can't wait to see the incredible research scholarship and creative activity that you all develop and co-create in response to these things so thanks so so much for investing your time in this today and we'll look forward to working with you through the whole process thanks. Thanks a lot Bob. So next to offer remarks is Dr. Elizabeth Spiller, UNL's relatively new Executive Vice Chancellor so I want to take a little bit of extra time to introduce Dr. Spiller she comes online because some of you in our virtual room today may have heard her name but due to our current circumstances you may not have had the opportunity to greet her yet on campus because Dr. Spiller arrived in Lincoln in March around the time many of us began working from home so Vice Chancellor Spiller take it away please. Thank you Nathan it's very it's very good to be here today I want to reiterate how exciting it is that so many members of the UNL community as and as Nathan says I really look forward to meeting many of you because it's I didn't arrive at about the time I arrived the day we shut the door so I'm really looking forward to working with you on this project and very excited to see such a lot of energy from faculty from researchers from from the entire campus community about how we can identify and build our set of grand challenges for the university I've been asked to comment briefly on the import of grand challenges to our educational mission and as part of our institutional commitment to the excellence of and professional development opportunities for faculty graduate students and undergraduates and I want to I appreciate that prompt in part because I think grand challenges well first of all grand challenges by definition are the hard questions as we know and as we're experiencing right now whether that's food insecurity global risk resource and access inequities in health care education human rights environmental sustainability gun violence all of these so-called wicked problems they are the most important questions in part because they're the hardest to solve by definition they cannot be solved simply by better technology better science or disciplinary innovation alone they are and they will remain intractable unless we're able to bring 360 degree solutions to bear on them that means multiple disciplinary perspectives need to come together and diverse human perspectives need to be part of the conversation we've said a lot during COVID-19 comments about how we are all in this we are saying that now in a whole variety of contexts that is true for every single grand challenge the world faces is that this is not that none of them are one person's problem or one person's solution what that means from the point of view I think of the intellectual the academic enterprise this kind of multidisciplinary multi-perspective problem-solving approach first of all for our communities of knowledge it really to my mind defines the highest impact and greatest consequence of our research and creative activities it's what we do and why we do it for our students multidisciplinary problem solving and co-creation of knowledge those anticipate precisely the skills that they will most need in the world in their future careers and in their future lives these aren't going to be optional skills for our students they're going to be integral skills so the opportunity and need for curricular innovation I think grand challenges are not and should not simply be a research endeavor they really are precisely because they're something we don't know the answer to they really are a shared learning opportunity for all of us and it and it should inform and I can talk at some later date about some of my previous experiences with grand challenges at the undergraduate level but they should go all the way from fundraising grant support working with donors the research enterprise graduate research and undergraduate education because really these are systemic issues and so our solutions have to be systemic I also I agree with the sentiment that I mean in some sense the grand challenges in general are why we are here I mean this is why we do what we do it's our job to figure out which ones to elevate right now but I think I'm mindful that in 1863 one of the the the charter for one of the things that Abraham Lincoln signed into being was the charter for what became the National Academy of Science and I say that as someone at a land grant institution thinking about what our responsibilities are that that charter was partly about a recognition that knowledge creation is is really integral to good governance and good communities and so I think that's a sort of keynote that we want to take with us into the future I think that none of the the grandest of our grand challenges won't be solved by a single discipline or a single person so and since everybody needs to be in the room I'm so happy to see everybody in the room thank you thank you so much Dr. Spiller really appreciate it so next we want to turn to a person who knows as much about grand challenge themes as anybody around our campus and that's Dr. Mike Bame vice chancellor of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources Dr. Bame are you there I am Nathan hi everyone and I'm probably going to break the rules by pulling this over but can you see can you see this slide thanks Michelle so it is a real privilege and just an honor to be a part of this group and I want to say thanks to everyone for spending some time this afternoon welcome to my basement where my home office is and I apologize for the air conditioner being a little loud at this point but I just have a few slides to share with you going all the way to the trivium and the quadrivium and really thinking about the liberal arts and the foundation and great medieval universities that became a model for universities in this country and then the practical arts if you will and how in 1862 at the peak of the civil war a group led by Abraham Lincoln as Elizabeth mentioned just a bit ago signs the moral act really the first of three moral acts that was about taking the liberal arts and the practical arts and melding them into this amazing new experiment Michelle this pilot called the complete university called the land grant university and how several other acts the Hatch Act of 1887 which brought in agriculture and agricultural experimental stations the likes of which our own east campus began and the Smith Lever Act of 1914 which brought in this notion of taking knowledge and and transmitting and extending that knowledge to the people of of this fledgling nation who needed that to enhance the quality of their life and today what we know and here in Nebraska UNL is the People's University it is the land grant university with three missions focusing on teaching and learning research discovery innovation outreach extension engagement that is the promise that is who we are and as has been pointed out multiple times the world is a complex wicked wickedly complex interdependent system and we are experiencing this as Ronnie set the stage here and now and as we think about these major megatrends if you will shaping and transforming what it needs to be human and how humans engage with one another no single discipline no engineering solution no business model will figure out the answer without understanding the human condition and how those potential solutions are are embraced by and interacts with humanity one of the things I think was attractive to me when I was seeking the opportunity to come to Nebraska and to UNL was a unique attribute of the university and that is we are very good at thinking about complex problems we're very good about thinking through these problems in an integrated systems approach where we bring in this model for example the human system with the social systems the global systems and thinking about how to work collaboratively to add value and determine solutions to some of these wickedly complex issues I share this for two reasons this is a slide that I borrowed from the UN United Nations sustainable development goals or the SDGs these are 16 goals that partners from around the world have framed these are very very complex issues and as a university we are already engaged in every single college in all 54 academic departments and our multitude of centers and institutes we are actively engaged and we're making a difference here for the people of Nebraska the Plains the United States North America and beyond but I share this and I'll pause here just a little bit so that you can see some of the the wicked global grand challenges that have been identified and the second reason for sharing this is an opportunity if you're interested perhaps not today but as you continue to ponder and we continue the journey as thinking about what UNL's grand challenges are and how our expertise as Michelle shared can be aligned with these issues and these challenges and how we put our scholarship and our creative works into service for humanity each of these SDGs has some detailed information and I'm sharing one here today that I think is certainly top of our minds my mind which is around promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development with access to justice for all and to build effective and accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels our institution is one of one of these inclusive institutions we aspire to do better and I echo Elizabeth and Ronnie and Nathan's and Bob's enthusiasm thank you again for your time we have a great opportunity in front of us and I look forward to being a part of this dialogue thanks for all you do thanks so much Vice Chancellor Bame I really appreciate you reminding us in very real terms right that these wicked problems these grand challenges require long game approaches right they aren't we aren't going to solve them through a short game tactics so far I'll just say the only question we've received in the chat box is a request for your slides Dr. Bame so are you willing to to make those available to the group afterwards you'd send those to me that'd be great so I mentioned that also now as a reminder that if you have questions please go ahead and drop them into our chat box so thank you to all our speakers that was really really wonderful really insightful really inspiring I'd now like to bring Andy Burnett back who's going to sort of walk us through the process that we all hopefully will be engaging in over the next few weeks so Andy thank you very much I am going to just briefly share my my screen to actually talk about the process this is of course the research the grand challenges webpage here and I'm showing it partly to be able to highlight the process steps but also to encourage you to go here because there are large red buttons that say things like register and it's a call to action on it so the process itself is relatively straightforward of course that hides in some way the fact that it requires everyone to engage in quite a lot of deep thought and action but the weather has improved and going for a stroll and thinking great thoughts is a wonderful way to do it so we are here the introductory process the next step which you can see is currently scheduled on the 9th is going to involve you in the opportunity of learning about different perspectives on the grand challenge opportunities and so there will be resources that are gradually added to the site and we encourage you to register to be part of this process and we'll scroll up a little bit hopefully not making anyone seasick that will lead us on to stage three and this is very important we want you to be able to help us understand the selection criteria so in other words we will ultimately end up with with a list of grand challenge topics how will we as a community decide how we're going to make the selection process there are obviously a wide range of of topics that one could explore the SDGs which were mentioned earlier the UN sustainable development goals is one set but there are many other ways of thinking about grand challenges so we need to as a group think about what are our selection criteria going to be that will lead on to stages four and five which is going to be about collecting ideas and these will be done through some activities not dissimilar to what we're doing now in terms of online engagement but much more person-to-person discussions in small groups to be able to actually generate the ideas to then explore the themes and then ultimately to be able to hone in on our most promising themes which will lead to the creation of the portfolio that we're going to then go forward with as our strategic framework so a relatively simple process or at least it looks simple on the on the page but with actually a lot of thought and a great deal of opportunity for you to share your ideas I have to say personally I'm I'm feeling extremely optimistic about the fact that so many of you took the time to come and join us today and hopefully that you'll encourage colleagues who weren't able to attend to watch the recordings of this because we need as wide a range of input on this as we can possibly get I think that's everything I need to cover if you're not familiar with it that is the address so I encourage you to go and register for the next stages as well uh thank you Nathan thanks so much Andy really appreciate that helpful overview so I want to be mindful of time we said that we'd offer Chancellor Green the opportunity to make some closing remarks if he's inclined to do so before the top of the hour so Ronnie you have two minutes do you want to say anything or do you want to we have we've received one other question would someone want to field the question make sure you field the question okay so this is from Dr Susan Sheridan so she said that the Ronnie indicated three grand challenge themes have been defined and that two or three more will be identified through this process is that how we should think about this going forward that is should we consider brainstorming new themes that could lead to grand challenges anybody want to take that on or looks like my mic's unmuted Bob do you want me to hand it over to you so thank you Sue and as many of you on the line will know Dr Sheridan was one of our four co-chairs of the N 2025 process when we referenced in the N 2025 goals and strategies that there were three areas that were already areas that we have invested a lot of effort around in an interdisciplinary way that wasn't to preclude that we shouldn't have the conversation about what they are moving forward so I would say that first of all that we want to have an open conversation about what our grand challenge is at the broadest level should be for this period moving forward it's always dangerous to put a number on something right and when you're when you're ideating in the way that we hope to do here then over the next month and a half you know it's it's it's safe to say that we can't have 10 grand challenges right because there's not that that takes away from the the focus of focusing in clearly on a few but it's it's not I wouldn't want us to say we're going to have five for example so I want us to ideate toward what are the grand challenges that the university should should really be focusing on rather than saying we're after four or five um in that way hope that makes sense not going with my colleagues Bob and Mike and Elizabeth would want to have anything to add to that or not yeah I think I would I would echo what you know I think I'm I'm I'm good you're on you're all I would echo what Ronnie is saying and I'd also just maybe cycle back to what Michelle had talked about I mean we want to we want to ask these questions we want to you know what are the the things that will really identify a relevant theme for us to be working on to be investing a lot of time and but we do have some some areas that we've invested in and we have some strength in I think even in in terms of those topics those three themes that we ought to be reflecting on what's the path forward what's what's the what's what's our opportunity what's our big advantage for those but at the same time this is a this is an interesting time in civilization let's let's identify the things that are really important for us to work on so I guess I'll yield my time to our my other colleagues maybe Mike Mike or Elizabeth want to talk about this too the only thing I would say is that while we might think we have identified some grand challenges that we can align our resources and have aligned our resources and talent one thing I would say is that there's we're far from maximizing the interaction across the spectrum of UNL and I think that even if we think we know something about a grand challenge that we have a lot of opportunity to come together and use this opportunity to get to know to each other better to understand our strengths in new ways and to probably illuminate some opportunities to strengthen what we already think we know and be a bit mindful and humble that we don't know what we don't know quite yet and if I might reaffirm that also as someone who's been through this process three times I will say that I think and I really appreciate you getting the frame here I think that there are it needs to be a discovery process is what I would say I mean that the the goal is less to answer questions than in a way to frame the questions and I think that being able to have identified areas as a point of departure I think is incredibly productive but I it's probably important not to foreshorten the conversation the only other thing I would add and Nathan unconscious that we are we are on our hour here the only other thing I would add is it would be a disservice to all of us in thinking through this this way if we didn't think in the frame of what does Nebraska bring uniquely to being able to address a grand challenge that's not to say that we should exclude things from the conversation it's to say what is this institution uniquely positioned to be able to to do in a grand challenge way so I would just close with that and Nathan if you wanted some closing comments I would just say first of all thank you again to all of you for engaging today this kind of first step in the conversation engage again on Tuesday in this next step that that Andy laid out a few minutes ago thanks thank you to the no innovation folks for helping us here and helping us in the process Michelle for your for your insights in helping us frame and think about this so we appreciated a great deal and I hope that all of you will continue to engage and and we'll identify uh the right set of grand challenges for Nebraska to be able to uh to move forward so with that Nate uh I'm done thanks Chancellor thanks so much very well said