Department of Energy Announces $5 Million for Research for Climate Resilience Centers

US Department of Energy Office of Science sent this bulletin at 09/28/2023 01:45 PM EDT

Department of Energy Announces $5 Million for Research for Climate Resilience Centers

Projects to Help Vulnerable Communities Battle a Changing Climate

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $5 million in funding for six projects that will increase the use and utility of DOE research to improve climate resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities, in conjunction with the White House Summit on Building Climate Resilient Communities.

These Climate Resilience Centers (CRCs) will improve the resilience of communities by empowering local universities to use DOE climate science to help tackle the problems posed by a changing climate. The CRCs will form a nucleus for building and enabling future young scientists, engineers, and technicians to use DOE climate science and capabilities at the DOE national laboratories, scientific user facilities, and universities and translate research results to practice among community stakeholders for improved local climate resilience.

“These awards will go to institutions that serve communities affected by the changing climate and will improve both basic climate science and community resilience,” said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, DOE’s Director of the Office of Science. “These centers will grow the next generation of scientists and leaders so they can tackle the tough problems that we know we will face in America’s diverse communities over the course of this century.”

Projects include climate science research to improve DOE supported activities, community engagement for two-way communication among stakeholders, researchers, and DOE, and social science to identify priorities and gauge progress in meeting community needs.

The projects were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for Climate Resilience Centers (DE-FOA-0002915).

Total funding is $5 million for projects lasting up to three years, from Fiscal Year 2023 dollars. The list of projects and more information can be found on the Biological and Environmental Research program homepage.