The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a new solicitation – Interdisciplinary Research in Hazards and Disasters, or HazardSEES – that aims to foster the science and engineering necessary to improve our understanding of natural and technological hazards linked to natural phenomena.  Proposals responsive to this program (which is one of several recent opportunities posted under NSF’s multi-year, Foundation-wide Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative) should describe (1) innovative interdisciplinary research that advances our understanding of the causes, interdependencies, impacts, and cumulative effects of these hazards on individuals, the natural and built environment, and society as a whole, and (2) mechanisms for improving capabilities for forecasting or predicting hazards, mitigating their effects, and enhancing our capacity to respond to and recover from resultant disasters.

Computing, communications, and information technologies will play an inherent role in enabling a hazard-resilient society in the long term, through data- and knowledge-driven discovery enabled by real-time sensing and predictive modeling for decision making; augmentation of human capabilities via robotics and assistive technologies; and improved assessment using modeling, simulation, and experimentation.

Although NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has a rich history of disciplinary research in each of these core research areas, HazardSEES provides a unique opportunity to foster the kinds of truly interdisciplinary teams that are necessary to substantially enhance disaster and hazard resilience in the face of an increasing frequency of extreme events and increasing impact on vulnerable regions in the world.

As specified in the solicitation, HazardSEES seeks proposals – due by February 4, 2013 – of two types:

Type 1: These proposals forge new or emerging interdisciplinary teams to develop ideas and approaches through either: (a) exploratory research that could, for example, mine, integrate, and synthesize existing data sets, collect limited new data, conduct modeling experiments, test new integrative approaches, and/or identify new conceptual ideas and key gaps in knowledge and methods; or (b) networking activities that would foster communication/coordination and promote new collaborations among scientists and engineers with diverse expertise across disciplinary, organizational, institutional, geographical and/or international boundaries. The inclusion of early career researchers and, where appropriate, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students in Type 1 projects is encouraged. Type 1 proposals are expected to range up to $300,000 for up to two years.

 

Type 2: These proposals support interdisciplinary research to conduct major new integrated hazards research. These may include theoretical, field, laboratory, and/or modeling activities. Type 2 proposals are expected to range up to $3,000,000 for up to four years.

All HazardSEES proposals need to demonstrate the inclusion of the appropriate expertise to address the research questions, hypotheses, and problems being posed.  Research projects should be designed around one or more locations, identifiable hazards, and/or themes. Furthermore, the projects must have as an objective training of the next generation of scientists and engineers for such research.

For more details, read the HazardSEES solicitation here.