History of the Alliance

The Alliance developed as a result of many discussions and several focused workshops. The first of these workshops was held at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) headquarters in Washington in January, 2017. The name HIBAR was proposed by participants at this event, and the group achieved a broad consensus on the definition of HIBAR research and the need to bolster it. This first meeting led to a follow-up event hosted by the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academies in June, 2017.  At this event, participants considered strategies to more reliably encourage HIBAR research.

The strategy for the HIBAR Research Alliance was developed during two subsequent workshops, one held in October, 2017 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the second held in March, 2018 at the University of California San Diego, funded by the US National Science Foundation.

Through these meetings, it was determined that the ideas associated with bolstering HIBAR in the university system resonate well with newcomers to the discussion – a necessary characteristic for eventually attracting enough participants to have substantial impact. The HIBAR Research Alliance (HRA) was launched in November, 2018.

The Alliance participants gratefully acknowledge the early and ongoing support of the APLU, GUIRR, NSERC, and NSF and the contributions of many individuals who conceived, launched, and contributed to the HRA.