Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Food Resiliency through Engineered Supply Chains (FRESCH)

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.

Contemporary food supply chains are optimized for high volume, low cost, and global reach-but continue to fail: food deserts and food-borne illness persist; small producers face barriers to participation; and natural disasters (including the COVID-19 pandemic) disrupt production and deliveries. Engineers traditionally approach problems systematically, sequentially, and incrementally. Breakdowns in food systems, however, are less manageable by these methods because food systems have engrained social and cultural elements (tastes, histories, identities, and values) which defy technical optimization and preclude stopping rules. The targeted societal impact of the FRESCH ERC is to improve the nation's health and prosperity by both avoiding or mitigating disruptions and by exploiting opportunities to expand food variety and profitability. An important aspect of the ERC's target goals is to shift thinking from linear "food supply chains" to flexible and resilient "food networks." Resilience within food networks means that whatever disruptions do occur will have smaller negative impacts or greater positive ones. Investment in adaptive capacity within the food industry will balance the pervasive drive for "leaner" food systems, which are often brittle and not aligned with sustainable development goals, such as increasing the incomes of food producers and ensuring decent work for all.

The FRESCH ERC will develop technology to serve all nodes of food systems; reduce food insecurity and waste; expand the criteria for system performance beyond technical efficiency; and transform education and practice in industrial, agricultural, and biosystems engineering to include concepts of resilience. Resilience is more than simple robustness or the ability to rebound-it includes graceful extendibility and sustained adaptability in response to critical situations or trends that cannot be foreseen. The planning grant will provide mechanisms and resources to charter an ERC to address issues of food safety in small-scale food networks and develop a food network challenge simulation to train students and stakeholders about the interconnectedness of food systems. Our intellectual approach to planning is grounded in the Community Capitals Framework. This systems approach considers all relevant human, social, natural, financial, built, cultural, and political capitals, and deploys them holistically to greatest impact for community development. Combining resilience thinking and community capitals is a convergent approach to define priorities and select impactful engineering research and development projects.

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.