Call 2: Weather Ready Research Instrument and Data Publication

Call Now Closed

For decades, researchers have called for access to scientific data, research instruments, and protocols to be shared. The main rationales include:

  • Reproducing or verifying research
  • Enabling others to ask new questions based on existing data
  • Advancing the state of research and innovation
  • Making results of publicly funded research available to the public
  • Fulfilling commitments to funders
  • Meeting journal requirements

This second call for Weather Ready Research will support the publication of social science and multidisciplinary data, data collection instruments, and research protocols for natural hazards and disaster research. Priority will be given to those materials that focus on weather related research (floods, hurricanes, extreme temperatures, wildfire, etc.), although we will consider all hazards-related research topics, including geophysical events such as earthquakes and technological hazards. We are interested in recently completed research as well as legacy datasets, therefore there is no time restriction on when the data were collected.

Available funds will support 18 to 36 awards of either $1,250 or $2,500 each. Investigators may submit a total of up to three separate proposals.

The $1,250 awards will support publication of one or more research protocols; instruments such as surveys, interview or focus group guides; or observation protocols from a single project.

The $2,500 awards will be reserved for those who publish a dataset and associated data collection instruments and protocols for a single project.

Proposals are due by 5:00 p.m. MDT on Wednesday, April 21, 2021. Award announcements will be made no later than Friday, May 21, 2021.

Please visit the CONVERGE Data Ambassadors page for a number of motivating examples of the types of materials that social scientists have already published through the DesignSafe-Cyberinfrastructure for the natural hazards research community. While this funding mechanism incentivises publishing data and corresponding instruments, we welcome and encourage the publication of data and instruments at any time outside of this competition as well.

Successful applicants will receive training through the NSF-supported CONVERGE Publish Your Data! initiative and will ultimately publish their own data and instruments through DesignSafe. Upon publication, researchers will receive a permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for their data and instruments. Participants will also be named Weather Ready and CONVERGE Data Ambassadors.

Training sessions and other forms of guidance will be offered to all award recipients in June and July of 2021. Research protocols, instruments, and/or data must be published by no later than October 8, 2021.

Proposal Topics

Hazards Types

As noted above, although we will consider all hazards for this call and priority will be given to research projects, instruments, and data focused on weather within the United States and U.S. territories, and marine hazards for countries encompassed by National Weather Service Marine Forecast Areas, and weather as defined in the Weather Act.

Hazards of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

  1. Air quality and/or visibility hazards (fog, ozone, dense smoke, dust storm, ashfall, etc.)
  2. Extreme temperatures, including extreme heat and cold
  3. Floods, including inland flooding, flash flooding, river flooding, storm surge, coastal flooding
  4. Hurricanes, including high wind, extreme precipitation/flooding, storm surge, tornadoes
  5. Severe weather, including lightning, thunderstorms, high wind, hail, and tornadoes
  6. Marine hazards, including hurricanes, sea swell, sea ice, tropical storms, and rip currents
  7. Rain and extreme precipitation
  8. Wildfire and red flag warnings
  9. Wind and high wind
  10. Winter weather, including blizzards, ice storms, lake effect snow, winter storm, frost, wind chill, freezing rain, snow squall

Topical Interests

We are also especially interested in encouraging social scientists and members of multidisciplinary teams to publish their research protocols, instruments, and data (especially any baseline and longitudinal data) from research focused on the following topical areas:

  1. Risk perception
  2. Risk communication
  3. Communicating and/or displaying uncertainty information (i.e., probabilistic information)
  4. Economic value of weather forecasts
  5. Protective action decision making
  6. Warnings and warning response
  7. Physical health impacts related to morbidity and mortality in disaster
  8. Emotional, behavioral, and mental health impacts
  9. Research focused on the decision context of emergency managers, weather forecasters, broadcast meteorologists, and other weather and water decision makers
  10. Research focused on underserved populations marginalized by race, class, gender, age, and other social divisions and subsequent uneven impacts
  11. Short- and long-term recovery
  12. Weather and public health

Program Eligibility

The designated lead award recipient must be from an academic institution based in a U.S. state or territory, however it is not necessary for research co-leads, assistants, or local collaborators to hold a U.S. university affiliation or be located in the United States.

How Funding Will Be Issued

Award funding will be provided to the lead researcher, collaborators, or research assistants. These payments will be sent directly to the award recipient(s) to cover time and effort related to participating in training sessions and publishing data and research instruments in DesignSafe.

The funding can be distributed across team members as designated by the project lead (for example, 50 percent of the award sent to the lead, 30 percent to a graduate research assistant, and 20 percent to an undergraduate research assistant). No more than three recipients can be designated for any one award.

Award funding will be processed after proposals are accepted and awards are announced. To receive the award funding, the designated recipients will need to provide:

  • One copy of a completed and signed funding agreement, which will be issued on approval to designated recipients of the award funds. The information for payees will be filled out on the form.
  • A W-9 or W-8BEN for all payment recipients (W-9 is for U.S. citizens or permanent residents; W-8BEN is for non-U.S. citizens).

Award funding will NOT be sent directly to a university or other institutions, and indirect costs associated with these funds are not allowed. Recipients of awards are solely responsible for all tax ramifications.

Please note, for award recipients who are non-U.S. citizens, the payment process may take longer and will require additional paperwork. All payments made to visa holders are submitted through the International Tax Office at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Proposal Submission Requirements

The following information and associated documents should be submitted through our online proposal submission form:

  • Project Title
  • Investigator Name(s) and Affiliation(s)
  • Brief Abstract (Limit 100 words; to be posted on the Natural Hazards Center website. Format examples can be found here)
  • 3-5 Keywords
  • Research Description: A description of the research project, methods used, preliminary results, and the data and/or instruments that you will be publishing in DesignSafe (limit 500 words).
  • Submission Type: You may select one of the following options. If you have more than one project that you hope to receive funding to publish, you should submit a separate proposal. Researchers are limited to three proposals.
  • Research Protocol / Instrument Proposals Only ($1,250 award): A description of the research protocol or instrument you plan to publish. (limit 750 words).
  • Data Publication and Protocol / Instrument Proposals ($2,500 award): A description of the dataset and any associated research instruments or protocols you plan to publish. (limit 750 words).
  • Project Type: Field research, experimental simulation, hybrid simulation, or other.
  • Hazard / Disaster Type: The type of natural hazard or disaster being researched.
  • Hazard / Disaster Event Name and Date, if applicable: (i.e., Hurricane Katrina, August 29, 2005; Joplin Tornado, May 22, 2011).
  • Geographic Focus: Proposals will be given priority that focus on projects conducted in the United States, U.S. territories, or marine hazards for countries encompassed by National Weather Service Marine Forecast Areas, and weather as defined in the Weather Act.
  • Topical Focus Area(s): (i.e., risk perception, risk communication, physical health impacts, emergency managers, underserved or marginalized populations, etc.).
  • Budget and Budget Justification: The budget and budget justification should provide a breakdown of anticipated expenditures within the predetermined amounts of $1,250 or $2,500 (limit 500 words).
  • Human Subjects Approval Letter: If the research included human subjects, an official letter from the applicant’s institutional review board or ethics committee demonstrating prior approval of the research, or waiving the need for approval, will be required before instrument or data publication activities can commence. If you no longer have access to this documentation, you may provide an explanation in lieu of a letter.

Additional Award Requirements

All award recipients, including the research lead and any collaborators, are required to:

  • Watch CONVERGE Publish Your Data! Webinar (30 minutes).
  • Participate in a CONVERGE and DesignSafe Publish Your Data! Training Session in June of 2021.
  • Organize, curate, and publish instruments or data via DesignSafe.
  • Complete the publication process and receive a permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
  • Send final award checklist with relevant DOI to the Natural Hazards Center no later than October 8, 2021. These materials will be shared with our partners at NOAA as we continue to work to build a Weather Ready research community.

Questions?

Please contact the Natural Hazards Center at haz.research.awards@colorado.edu.

Acknowledgements

The Weather Ready Research Award program is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF Award #1635593) through supplemental funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Program Office. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF, NOAA, or the Natural Hazards Center.