Natural hazards engineering research infrastructure (nheri) decadal visioning for FY 2026-FY 2035

The National Science Foundation awarded a $233,430 cooperative agreement to Nexight Group LLC under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) from August 15, 2022 to July 31, 2024. Nexight will conduct a decadal visioning study to examine future directions for natural hazards engineering research and supporting research infrastructure needs from fiscal years 2026 to 2035. Key tasks include preliminary assessments of the field's science drivers and infrastructure, stakeholder engagement, community workshops, and developing a final visioning framework report. The study aims to identify grand challenges, infrastructure, education, and outreach priorities to advance the sustainability and resilience of the nation's civil infrastructure against natural hazards over the next decade. Findings will help inform NSF program support and align research with providing resilient infrastructure under extreme conditions, contributing to the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction and National Windstorm Impact Reduction Programs.

Abstract

The NSF-supported natural hazards engineering research infrastructure (nheri) awards, originally funded under the NSF 14-605 and NSF 15-598 program solicitations, will end on september 30, 2025. These awards, forming the NSF-supported nheri mid-scale facility, have provided the natural hazards engineering (NHE) community with experimental, field, cyberinfrastructure, high performance computing, and computational modeling and simulation resources to conduct NHE research. This award, to nexight group LLC, will examine the influence of evolving natural hazards engineering (NHE) research, the national research infrastructure landscape, emerging technologies for resilient and sustainable civil infrastructure, state of climate change, and other driving forces on future NHE research directions, and will identify the research infrastructure (i.e., experimental and field equipment, instrumentation, and new experimental techniques and capabilities), cyberinfrastructure, and computational modeling and simulation tools needed to conduct future NHE research over the next decade, i.e., from fiscal year (FY) 2026-FY 2035. This study will review the state of natural hazards knowledge in the current and emerging areas of NHE research and research infrastructure and will generate recommendations for a comprehensive vision and strategy for the next decade of transformative science and engineering research and supporting research infrastructure at the frontiers of civil engineering, computational and data sciences, infrastructure materials, extreme natural hazard events, and other emerging fields. The study will also examine new modes of access to physical- and cyber-facilities by the NHE research community, and how these facilities can support education, outreach, and pathways for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The study can serve as input to NSF for designing research and research infrastructure program support during FY 2026-FY 2035 and will define and align NHE research to advance fundamental scientific knowledge in providing the nation with resilient and sustainable civil infrastructure under extreme event conditions. This award will contribute to NSF's roles in the national earthquake hazards reduction program (nehrp) and the national windstorm impact reduction program (nwirp). This award will gather input from the broad NHE and other related research communities to develop a decadal visioning (DV) framework (FY 2026-FY 2035) for grand challenges research, research infrastructure, education, and outreach needs to advance the sustainability and resilience of the nation's civil infrastructure to natural hazard events. The key elements of this project comprise four main tasks: (i) conduct a preliminary assessment of the science drivers and current state of NHE research and research infrastructure by establishing a task group from the relevant NHE communities; define the vision, scope, and goals of the DV; and gather preliminary findings for the research agenda and research infrastructure needs; (II) engage stakeholders to gather expert insights for organizing community-focused virtual workshops and coordinate review teams for developing the DV framework; (III) plan and facilitate collaborative community workshops to identify and prioritize the framework?s key science drivers (i.e., grand challenges), research infrastructure, education, and outreach needs; and (IV) develop the DV framework, including key graphical concepts and final briefing materials to communicate the findings of the final DV report. The DV framework report will be archived and made publicly available in the nheri data depot (https://WWW.designsafe-CI.ORG). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.