Centers for Innovation and Community Engagement in Solid Earth Geohazards

The Centers for Innovation and Community Engagement in Solid Earth Geohazards program supports university-based centers to advance research on the fundamental solid Earth processes that underpin natural hazards. Centers will catalyze, coordinate, and produce transformative research, lead innovation, and enable convergent approaches for systems-level insights that require the collective efforts of a large group of individuals.

Centers focus on addressing major, fundamental science challenges for understanding solid Earth geohazards, primarily those related to faulting, volcanoes, mass movements, and other dynamic processes.  In particular, the Centers will advance understanding in one or more of the priorities outlined in the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine decadal survey report The Earth in Time, including; What is an earthquake? What drives volcanism? What are the causes and consequences of topographic change? and How can Earth science research reduce the risk and toll of geohazards?

Centers will also foster different dimensions of community engagement to meaningfully improve the national welfare. Flagship community engagement activities will take bold and creative action to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in the geoscience workforce and expand the impact of fundamental research in solid Earth geohazards to inform and prepare a broader community. Centers will establish partnerships to enable public outreach, hazard mitigation and other community engagement activities.

The Program has two tracks, both of which are described in this solicitation. Track I – Center Catalyst awards are intended to provide resources to catalyze initiatives to develop future centers.  These awards would support groups to develop the science, management, and broader impact concepts for of a major research center.  Track II – Center Operation awards are intended to support the operation of a fully developed center. 

In FY 2022 the competition will support Track I – Center Catalyst proposals to develop centers to address topics that focus on the fundamental processes that create solid Earth geohazards, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, and/or other solid Earth or tectonic processes.  Track II – Center Operation proposals will focus on the operation of centers that will support frontier research in fundamental earthquake processes.  NSF intends to open future competitions for Track II- Center Operation support to proposals focused more broadly on solid Earth geohazards.