Grand Challenges are difficult but important problems set by various institutions or professions to encourage solutions or advocate for the application of government or philanthropic funds especially in the most highly developed economies [1] and
... energize not only the scientific and engineering community, but also students, journalists, the public, and their elected representatives, to develop a sense of the possibilities, an appreciation of the risks, and an urgent commitment to accelerate progress.[2]
Grand challenges are more than ordinary research questions or priorities, they are end results or outcomes that are global in scale; very difficult to accomplish, yet offer hope of being ultimately tractable; demand an extensive number of research projects across many technical and non-technical disciplines and accompanied by well-defined metrics. [1] Lastly, Grand challenges "require coordinated, collaborative, and collective efforts"[3] and must capture "the popular imagination, and thus political support."[1]
ASCE Grand Challenge for Civil Engineering, initiative by the American Society of Civil Engineering's (ASCE) to enhance significantly the performance and life-cycle value of infrastructure by 2025. [6]
DARPA Grand Challenge, initiative to develop technologies needed to create fully autonomous ground vehicles, capable of completing a substantial off-road course within a limited time.
DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, initiative to create automatic defensive systems capable of reasoning about software flaws, formulating patches and deploying them on a network in real time.
H-Prize, initiative sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to promote use of hydrogen as an energy carrier.
High-performance computing initiative sponsored by the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the United States in the 1980s.
NSF Report on Grand Challenges of Mind and Brain (2006)
BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), supporting the development and application of technologies to understand human brain function.
Grand Challenges Canada, initiative supported by the Canadian government based upon the Grand Challenges in Global Health to develop solutions to critical health and development challenges in the developing world.
Elevator:2010, initiative sponsored in part by NASA for the purpose of developing space elevator and space elevator-related technologies.
Environmental Grand Challenges, initiative by the National Research Council (NRC) about the most important and challenging scientific questions in the environmental sciences.
XChallenge, non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological developments.
Grand Challenges, Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Well-being, initiative by University College London to develop cross-disciplinary collaborations related to matters of pressing societal concern.
In management and organization studies, an important research agenda has evolved around Grand Challenges.[9][10] However, it is being criticized.[11][12]
U.S. national computing research
1980s
The presidential Office of Science and Technology Policy in the United States set a first list of grand challenges in the late 1980s, to direct research funding for high-performance computing. A grand challenge is a fundamental problem in science or engineering, with broad applications, whose solution would be enabled by the application of high performance computing resources that could become available in the near future. Examples of these grand challenges were said to be:[13]
Computational fluid dynamics for
the design of hypersonic aircraft, efficient automobile bodies, and extremely quiet submarines
weather forecasting for short- and long-term effects
efficient recovery of oil, and for many other applications
Electronic structure calculations for the design of new materials such as
chemical catalysts
immunological agents
superconductors
Plasma dynamics for fusion energy technology and for safe and efficient military technology
Calculations to understand the fundamental nature of matter, including quantum chromodynamics and condensed matter theory
^ abcd Gould, M. "GIScience grand challenges: How can research and technology in this field address big-picture problems? ArcUser, 13 (4), 64–65." (2010). Accessed at [1]
^Omenn, Gilbert S. "Grand challenges and great opportunities in science, technology, and public policy." Science 314.5806 (2006): 1696-1704. accessed at [2]
^Mertz, D.R. (2005). Grand Challenges: A Strategic Plan for Bridge Engineering, NCHRP Project 20-07/Task 199, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.v
^Regli, William, and Jeff Heisserman. "Report from the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Global Grand Challenges Summit." Computer-Aided Design 11.45 (2013): 1485-1487.
^Sawyer, Tom. "Engineers Rise to Challenge for Infrastructure Innovations." Enr, vol. 279, no. 1, 2017, pp. 45
^Marburger, J. "Grand challenges for disaster reduction." National Science and Technology Council (2005). Accessed on November 5,2017 at [3]
^NCTM Research Committee. "Grand challenges and opportunities in mathematics education research." Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 46.2 (2015): 134-146. Accessed at [4]
^"A Research and Development Strategy for High Performance Computing", Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, November 20, 1987
^Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, "The Federal High Performance Computing Program," Sept. 1989, pp. 49–50: Appendix A Summary
