Faculty meetings to advance steps toward proposals in $100 million MacArthur competition

Faculty members at all Purdue campuses are invited to attend any one of four imminent meetings to help Purdue shape proposals for the MacArthur Foundation's 100&Change competition, announced this month and promising a $100 million award for one team's proposal to solve a critical world problem.

Proposal teams must register by Sept. 2 and proposals are due Oct. 3. Purdue expects to submit multiple proposals, but the competition rules forbid any overlap of names on team rosters, so each person must choose one.

For this interdisciplinary effort, Purdue is turning for leadership to Tomás Diaz de la Rubia, chief scientist and executive director of Discovery Park; and S. Laurel Weldon, director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute and Distinguished Professor of Political Science.

Díaz de la Rubia says, "The idea of $100 million is exhilarating. Purdue has many people who think about big ideas with big social impact, and who understand how often, even generous resources can fall short of scaling up a project to its full potential. We feel strongly that we are well-positioned to submit very competitive proposals, and we applaud the MacArthur Foundation's vision in this offer."

Last week, Discovery Park hosted an initial brainstorming meeting to explore proposal ideas, and several focus areas have emerged. The next step is meetings for each focus area to consider solutions.

Here are the focus areas, followed by the meeting times and possible topics raised thus far within that focus. The sites of the meetings will be determined by the number of responses.

(1) Water and energy
June 30 (Th) at 1-2 p.m.
Possible topic: environment, solar, sustainability

(2) Health and disease
June 30 (Th) at 3-4 p.m.
Possible topics: cancer, breastfeeding

(3) Food
July 1 (F) at 1-2 p.m.

(4) Social issues
July 1 (F) at 3-4 p.m.
Possible topics: affordable housing, race, complex systems, education (minorities, youth)

Interested faculty members need to RSVP at ppri@purdue.edu, whether or not they can attend the pertinent meeting listed above, and indicate which focus area most interests them. These meetings will concentrate on solutions. Subsequent meetings will be scheduled to focus on viability, feasibility and permanence to bring together a strong, focused proposal.

Documents to provide guidance in proposal development will be provided early next week to those who express interest in participating.

About the competition: Selected notes

* Proposals must have a charitable purpose.

* The MacArthur Foundation says, "Competitive proposals will be meaningful, verifiable, durable, and feasible," and each of those terms is defined further.

* The solution must be implemented over a period between three and six years.

* The timeline includes selection of semifinalists in late November or early December; selection of finalists July 7-15, 2017; and finalists' presentations followed by selection of the winner in early September 2017.

* The foundation's announcement release says it plans to make such an award every three years.

Competition website: https://www.100andchange.org/

MacArthur Foundation announcement release: https://www.macfound.org/press/press-releases/new-macarthur-competition-award-100-million-help-solve-critical-social-problem/