A revised description of NSF’s Engineering for Civil Infrastructure (ECI) program encourages principal investigators to leverage NHERI experimental, computational and simulation and data resources. The revised description also points researchers preparing proposals to the 2020 NHERI Science plan as a resource for research topics that could benefit from the use of NHERI resources and are relevant to the ECI program.

The ECI program is the umbrella for all NSF awards concerned with mitigating damage to infrastructure and society due to natural hazards. The ECI supports “fundamental research in infrastructure materials and architectural, geotechnical and structural engineering that can shape the future of the nation's civil infrastructure.” The advisory now reads as follows:

Principal Investigators are encouraged to leverage NSF’s investments in the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) experimental, computational modeling and simulation, and data resources (designsafe-ci.org) in their research to accelerate advances needed for reducing the impacts of natural hazards on civil infrastructure. The NHERI Five-Year Science Plan (January 2020) (tinyurl.com/ue8g5ra) offers a range of research topics that could benefit from the use of NHERI resources and are relevant to the ECI program.

The NHERI 5-Year Science Plan is the result of work and contributions from the NHERI community since 2016. For more information about the plan, please visit: designsafe-ci.org/facilities/nco/science-plan.