Communities in the 21st century

CIVIC Innovation Challenge is a joint program of NSF, the US Department of Energy Connected Vehicle Technologies Program, and US Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate.

CIVIC is organized as a two-stage competition with two tracks centered around the following topic areas:

Track A. Communities and Mobility: Offering Better Mobility Options to Solve the Spatial Mismatch Between Housing Affordability and Jobs; and 

Track B. Resilience to Natural Disasters: Equipping Communities for Greater Preparedness and Resilience to Natural Disasters.

In Stage 1, up to 12 awards per track will be made for Planning Grants – each with a budget of up to $50,000 for four months to undertake pre-development activities, including solidifying the team, maturing the project plans, and preparing to submit a well-developed full proposal for Stage 2. In the second stage (Stage 2), up to four teams per track will be selected from Stage 1 award recipients to receive a full award - each with a budget of up to $1,000,000 for up to 12 months. Only awardees of Stage 1 will be eligible to submit proposals for Stage 2. CIVIC differs from the S&CC program in important ways. First, it strongly encourages co-creation of research concept by the community and researchers. Second, it operates on a very accelerated time scale. While S&CC anticipates research impacts after 3-4 years, CIVIC seeks to co-create research innovations and demonstrate significant community impact potential by the end of stage 2.

Throughout both stages, MetroLab Network will foster "communities of practice" through in-person and web-based activities, as part of a NSF-funded project. These activities will be aimed at enhancing the teams' capacity-building, networking, impact, and ability to create methods and solutions transferable to other communities.

Website:
https://nsfcivicinnovation.org/

Press Release:Toward Smarter Communities: Federal Agencies Partner on a Research and Action Competition

The NSF established the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program in 1980 to study ecological phenomena over long periods of time. The LTER network consists of 28 long-term research sites. Together, these sites have produced data on ecological, social, and economic processes for several decades. While all LTER sites interact with communities of various scales, two sites, the Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study LTER, are specifically focused on Urban Ecology. Both were established in 1997. Competition for a new urban LTER site was launched in 2019. The North Temperate Lakes LTER, established in 1981, is devoted to the study of lakes and includes Lake Mendota which is located in the heart of Madison, WI. NSF has long required that data collected by LTER sites be made broadly available to scientists, educators, and the public to ensure these long-term investments empower interested parties beyond the scientists directly supported by LTER. These data are accessible through the Environmental Data Initiative and other public data repositories. For more information on LTER network activities and for links to individual LTER site web pages, visit the LTER Network webpage.

Websites:
Long-Term Ecological Research Program
Environmental Data Initiative
LTER Network

Urban systems are dependent on rural systems for the provisioning of food, energy, water, and other materials, while rural systems are dependent on urban systems for markets for these provisions and other services such as specialized healthcare. In turn, both systems are connected by biotic and ecological processes that influence and are influenced by human behavior. The goal of SRS is to fund convergent research and education that will advance sustainable regional systems science and engineering to facilitate the transformation of current regional systems to enhance sustainability. 

In response to NSF's Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education (AC ERE) 2018 report titled Sustainable Urban Systems: Articulating a Long-Term Convergence Research Agenda, the NSF is called for workshop proposals to explore concepts of Sustainable Urban System Research Networks. Based on the findings of the AC ERE report and workshops, a compelling vision and research agenda was developed for Sustainable Regional Systems (SRS) science, engineering and education. In FY 2019, the NSF supported 27 workshops that explored concepts for potential Sustainable Regional Systems Research Networks The AC ERE's report and SUS workshops articulate a vision and a compelling research agenda for developing the next generation of sustainable urban systems (SUS) science that includes:

• Developing new data and methods to understand the interactions among natural, built, and social, behavioral, and economic systems in regional areas;
• Advancing comparative, typology, and scalability studies to develop generalizable theories of regional systems;
• Co-producing knowledge through engagement with communities and stakeholders and by leveraging real-world experimentation ongoing in regional areas; and
• Developing the science model and make predictions about the future of sustainable regional systems.

Prior Research Network competitions have resulted in several $12 million awards. Next-generation SRS Research Networks of comparable-size should enable broader, more extensive, and more comprehensive SRS research and education than is currently possible elsewhere in NSF's portfolio.

Websites:

• Sustainable Urban Systems Conference and Workshop Awards
• Dear Colleague Letter (NSF 19-032): Conference Proposals on Concepts for Advancing Sustainable Urban Systems (SUS) Research Networks 
• Press Release for AC ERE Report: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=244179
• SRS Solicitation: https://nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=505707&org=NSF