Earthscope Consortium Inc.

Earthscope Consortium Inc., doing business as Iris, a nonprofit university consortium headquartered in Washington, DC, operates as a prime recipient of federal research grants and cooperative agreements focused on seismological instrumentation, geodetic equipment, geophysical data services, and earth science workforce development. The consortium competes in full-and-open federal grant and cooperative-agreement solicitations without set-aside protections; its footprint consists almost entirely of prime recipient grants and cooperative agreements (89% of 75 total awards) rather than contracts or subgrants.

Iris's core mission centers on operating national geophysical research facilities and cyberinfrastructure. The National Science Foundation is the dominant customer, funding 51 of 64 prime awards (80% coverage by award count) across multiple NSF divisions, particularly the Division of Earth Sciences. Representative funded work includes a $59.141 million cooperative agreement awarded October 1, 2025 (CFDA 47.050, Geosciences) to establish and operate the National Geophysical Facility, providing more than 40 types of advanced geophysical sensors, persistent global and regional sensor networks delivering low-latency data, cloud-native data repositories, and geoscience workforce development and educational resources spanning earthquake physics, space weather, natural hazards monitoring, and nuclear threat detection through September 30, 2030. Iris also received a $2.003 million cooperative agreement from NSF's Polar Programs (CFDA 47.078, awarded May 15, 2026) to support operations and maintenance of polar geophysical infrastructure in the Arctic and Antarctic, including persistent sensor networks, engineering support for field deployments, open data maintenance spanning a century of polar research, and educational and training activities through September 30, 2030. Additionally, NSF's Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure awarded Iris $224,724 on August 1, 2026 (CFDA 47.070) to develop open-source cyberinfrastructure integrating geophysical sensor data, satellite imagery, meteorological observations, and groundwater measurements with numerical simulations and artificial intelligence for digital twins supporting real-time earthquake, landslide, and flood hazard estimation, with field testing in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and place of performance in Washington, DC through July 31, 2032.

Iris holds minimal contract exposure — two small firm-fixed-price purchase orders from the Hawaii Volcano Observatory totaling $41.5 thousand for shipping 2,000 seismic nodes and program-related deliverables. Customer diversity is substantial across 15 distinct federal agencies, though NSF concentration is pronounced. The consortium's subgrant footprint (11% of awards) routes work to university partners including the University of Washington, University of Hawaii, University of California San Diego, and the Concord Consortium for GPS data services, mapping tools development, curriculum development, and geodetic research support. Iris subcontracts minimally under prime contractors — one sub-award from Applied Research Associates for shipping logistics on high-explosive experiments. Activity trajectory shows recent growth with ten awards in 2023 followed by lower volume in 2024–2026 (four, six, and three awards respectively); three awards face completion within the next twenty-four months. The consortium's combined potential value across all awards stands at roughly $2 million, though obligated dollars of $647.9 million reflect the substantial multi-year cooperative-agreement and grant commitments, particularly the large-dollar NGF and SAGE facility awards that anchor Iris's revenue and operational scope through 2030 and beyond.