The National Science Foundation has released a solicitation for its new Interdisciplinary Research in Hazards and Disasters (Hazards SEES) progam. Details can be found here.
The overarching goal of Hazards SEES is to promote well-integrated interdisciplinary research in hazards-related science and engineering. Such research should improve the understanding of natural hazards and technological hazards linked to natural phenomena, and mitigate their effects, as well as promote disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. The goal is to effectively prevent hazards from becoming disasters.
Hazards SEES will make investments in strongly interdisciplinary research that will reduce the impact of such hazards, enhance the safety of society, and contribute to sustainability. The program is a multi-directorate program that seeks to: (1) advance understanding of the fundamental processes associated with specific natural hazards and technological hazards linked to natural phenomena; (2) better understand the causes, interdependencies, impacts, and cumulative effects of hazards on individuals, the natural and built environment, and society as a whole; and (3) improve capabilities for forecasting or predicting hazards, mitigating their effects, and enhancing the capacity to respond to and recover from resultant disasters.
Hazards SEES seeks research projects that will productively cross the boundaries of the atmospheric and geospace, earth, and ocean sciences; computer and information science; cyberinfrastructure; engineering; mathematics and statistics; and social, economic, and behavioral sciences. Successful proposals will integrate across these multiple disciplines to promote research that advances new paradigms for the creation of a society resilient to hazards. A goal of the program is the transformation of hazards and disaster research through the development of an interdisciplinary approach that allows for appropriately targeted collection, integration, and management of data; modeling (including predictive models for real-time decision making); visualization and simulation; data analytics and data-driven discovery; real-time sensing; cross-cutting knowledge development; and synthesis of applicable models and theory. Proposals must demonstrate the inclusion of the appropriate expertise to address the research questions, hypotheses, and problems being posed. Hazards SEES research projects should be designed around one or more locations, identifiable hazards, and/or themes.
The deadline for full proposals is February 4, 2013.