Please see the full solicitation for complete information about the funding opportunity. Below is a summary assembled by the Research & Innovation Office (RIO).

Program Summary

The DOE SC Program in Biological and Environmental Research (BER), Earth and Environmental System Sciences Division (EESSD) hereby announces its interest in applications from the scientific community for Urban Integrated Field Laboratories (Urban IFLs) that will improve the science underpinning our understanding of climate and environmental predictability across complex and variable urban regions. EESSD supports fundamental systems level research aimed at identifying the foundational principles of dynamic physical, biogeochemical, and human processes and interactions and advancing fundamental understanding of the predictability of the climate and broader Earth system. EESSD develops the science, technology, and knowledge base that is necessary to inform actions to enable the resilience of natural-human systems that are exposed to climate trends, variabilities, and extremes.

For the purposes of this FOA, urban regions are densely populated areas, encompassing interdependent environmental, ecological, infrastructure, and human components. Urban regions of interest for this FOA are in climate-sensitive locations, and are highly heterogeneous, i.e. having uneven distribution of physical landforms and vegetation, environmental processes, the built environment and infrastructure, population density, and socioeconomic clustering in the urban landscape, particularly when that heterogeneity relates to impacts on disadvantaged communities. The Urban IFLs will necessarily involve diverse scientific disciplines to develop comprehensive projects including field observations, data assimilation, modeling, and model- data fusion, to inform equitable solutions based on state-of-the-art uncertainty quantification and data analytics. Applications must be multi-institutional and focus on the development of a single IFL. While multiple IFLs may be selected in response to this FOA, considered together, each of the selected IFLs will represent different aspects of understanding urban systems, potentially including diverse demographic characteristics; differing climate-induced pressures on people and infrastructures; and unique geographic settings, e.g., coastal; arid lands; mountains; plains; or Great Lakes.

The objective of the Urban IFL program is to advance the science underpinning our understanding of the predictability of urban systems and their two-way interactions with the climate system, in order to provide the knowledge and information necessary to inform equitable climate and energy solutions that can strengthen community scale resilience across urban landscapes. The Urban IFLs will pursue the fundamental scientific understanding necessary to inform the design, development, financing, and deployment pathways of technical solutions that promote social equity and enhance urban resilience in response to the climate crisis.

Deadlines

CU Internal Deadline: 11:59pm MST April 4, 2022

DOE Pre-Application Deadline: 3:00pm MST April 19, 2022

DOE Application Deadline: 3:00pm MST June 16, 2022

Internal Application Requirements (all in PDF format)

  • Project Summary (1 page maximum): Provide the name of the applicant, the project title, the PI and the PI’s institutional affiliation, any coinvestigators (including any unfunded collaborators) and their institutional affiliations, the objectives of the project, a description of the project, including methods to be employed, and the potential impact of the project (i.e., benefits, outcomes).
  • Lead PI Curriculum Vitae
  • Budget Overview (1 page maximum): A basic budget outlining project costs is sufficient; detailed OCG budgets are not required.

To access the online application, visit: Ìý

Eligibility

Non-DOE/NNSA FFRDCs are eligible to submit applications under this FOA but are not eligible to be proposed as lead in a collaborative application or as subrecipients under another organization’s application. Instead, they must submit their own application as a team member in a multi-institutional team led by another institution. If recommended for funding in a multi- institutional team, funding may be provided through an interagency agreement to the FFRDC’s sponsoring Federal Agency.

Limited Submission Guidelines

Applicant institutions are limited to no more than one letter of intent, pre-application, or application as lead institution.

Award Information

$2,000,000 per year to $5,000,000 per year. The amount requested for each year of the five-year project may vary within these limits.