Hosted by NITRD, DOE, and NSF, the DECIDE Workshop seeks to identify opportunities and needs for developing scalable, computational decision-making methods that chart a course for impactful advancements in the field. The ability to provide decision support of high-consequence decisions under uncertainty is the grand challenge of the coming decades. This DECIDE workshop will work towards that challenge and provide resources for the National Strategic Computing Reserve (NSCR).  The NSCR will be a strategic reserve (of compute, data, software, workforce, scenarios, models, communication, …) that will provide compute resources and bring research expertise to bear in times of crisis to help save lives, property, public health, safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe.  

The DECIDE workshop will bring together leading researchers specializing in the science of decision-making, along with key individuals from the U.S. government and industry who rely on advancements in the computational capability enabling decision making, to address critical challenges in managing large-scale, complex systems under high uncertainty. By engaging scientists, policymakers, and industrial practitioners, the workshop aims to identify opportunities and pressing needs for developing scalable, computational decision-making methods that chart a course for impactful advancements in the field over the next decade. The advancement of computational and data-driven tools will be critical in addressing the challenges associated with large-scale, complex systems that operate under high uncertainty. NSCR will need these tools when called into action. The DECIDE workshop will not only advance these pivotal tools but inspire transformative approaches that empower decision-makers to tackle critical challenges effectively and equitably by fostering innovation and resilience across diverse research domains. Bringing together a comprehensive set of stakeholders, this DECIDE Workshop will also continue to foster the community that is needed across government, academia, and industry to develop integrated efforts anchored in crosscutting NSCR capabilities and related initiatives.

Motivation & Goals. Rapidly evolving technologies and interconnected geopolitical systems are adding complexity to the decision-making process, increasing the need for incorporating advanced computational capabilities and proliferating data sources to ensure quick response while managing uncertainty. U.S. Government agencies, including DOE and NSF, are positioned to address a new frontier of scalable computational research, deploy through the NSCR, and enable a more effective response to new challenges. 

The goals of the DECIDE Workshop are:

• to map out the scope of decision support needs across the participating U.S. Government agencies;
• to identify existing tools & capabilities for deployment through NSCR;
• to surface crosscutting R&D gaps in current decision support technologies (such as AI autonomous systems, and uncertainty quantification); and
• to continue to build the interdisciplinary community already forming around the NSCR. 

Aspects such as pathways to obtaining data and feasibility of translating decision support to action are recognized as important but data sharing agreements are outside the scope of this workshop.  

PREREAD:

Please click here for a .pdf: DECIDE-Workshop_Preread.pdf