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Engineering Laboratory

Disaster Resilience Grants Program

2022 Notice Of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)

***UPDATES and NOTIFICATIONS***

8/14/2023 - Applications have been fully reviewed and final selections are being confirmed.

***END UPDATES and NOTIFICATIONS***

Every year, communities across the United States suffer significant disasters from natural hazards, including droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and other natural hazards. While these sorts of adverse events cannot be eradicated, their consequences can be less disastrous if communities reduce their vulnerabilities and increase their resilience. Further, as average temperatures in the U.S. have risen in the last 50 years, many more extreme storms and fires have occurred. As this climate trend is expected to continue, improved adaptation and resilience to the new climate conditions, including extreme natural hazards, is growing more pressing. Scientific and engineering research can contribute significantly to disaster resilience and climate adaptation by revealing fundamental principles with implications for action. This solicitation, therefore, seeks to catalyze research into disaster-resilience relevant phenomena in support of improved, science-based measures or mechanisms for improved resilience, including improved planning, policy, decisions, design, codes, and standards or other relevant mechanisms.. The National Academies described disaster resilience as "a national imperative" in its 2012 report . As such, research and development programs within Federal agencies, including NIST, have been targeting advancing disaster resilience.

NIST and NSF jointly released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) on May 5, 2022 to help further its commitment to enhancing the nation's resilience. With this joint solicitation, the NSF and the U.S Department of Commerce (DOC) National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) call for research proposals to advance fundamental knowledge related to disaster resilience. Advances in scientific and engineering methods and tools relevant to resilience are also of interest.

Natural hazards that are of interest include, but are not limited to:

Windstorm events, including hurricanes and tornadoes;
Water events, including hurricanes, sustained rain, both coastal and inland flood, and tsunamis;
Wildland-urban interface fires;
Earthquakes.
Terrorism, industrial accidents, and pandemics are not covered by this competition.

Projects that aim to address multi-hazard resilience phenomena are welcome.

Processes associated with disaster resilience that are of interest include, but are not limited to:
Destructive forces associated with hazards, such as wind forces, seismic forces, water forces, and wildland-urban interface fire-related radiative,
convective, or branding forces;
Performance of structures and infrastructure in natural hazard events;
Assessment of potential community-level disaster consequences, including characterization of risks, potential failures, and anticipated losses in support
of planning and decision making;
Development or assessment of alternatives for improving resilience that address prevention, preparedness, response, mitigation, or recovery;
Diffusion, adoption and implementation of measures for resilience of households, organizations, or jurisdictions.

Entities associated with disaster resilience that are of interest include, but are not limited to:

Structures;
Infrastructures/Lifelines;
Communities/National, State, Local, Tribal Territorial Jurisdictions;
Households.

Disaster resilience-related policies and practices that are of interest include, but are not limited to:

Building design practices, codes, and standards;
Infrastructure design practices, codes, and standards;
Community planning and decision making;
Household planning and decision making;
Land-use planning and decision making.

NIST held a webinar on June 2, 2022 to provide general information regarding the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), offer general guidance on preparing applications, and answer questions. Proprietary technical discussions about specific project ideas were not permitted and NIST staff did not critique or provide feedback on specific project ideas while they are being developed by an applicant or brought forth during the Webinar or at any time before the deadline for all applications. However, questions about the DR Research Grants Program, eligibility requirements, evaluation and award criteria, selection process, and the general characteristics of a competitive application were addressed at the Webinar and by e-mail. There was no cost to attend the Webinar, but participants were required to register in advance. Participation in the Webinar was not required, and was not considered in the application review and selection process.

Public Information Events

Disaster Resilience Symposium: The symposium is held annually. Please see the Disaster Resilience Symposium page for more information and registration details

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Questions Not Answered In The FAQ: Refer to the NOFO for a list of agency contacts or e-mail EL_AgreementsSpecialist [at] nist.gov (EL_AgreementsSpecialist[at]nist[dot]gov).