Funding Opportunity Announcement: DE-FOA-0002392—Environmental System Science

Funding Opportunity Announcement: DE-FOA-0002392—Environmental System Science [3/21]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) announces its interest in receiving applications for research in Environmental System Science (ESS). Recently formed by the merger of the Subsurface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) and Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) programs, the ESS program goal is to advance an integrated, robust, and scale-aware predictive understanding of terrestrial systems and their interdependent ecological, hydrological, and physical processes. The program seeks to develop an integrated framework using a systems approach to elucidate the complex processes and controls on the structure, function, feedbacks, and dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems that span from the bedrock through the rhizosphere and vegetation to the atmospheric interface. This FOA will consider applications that focus on improving the understanding and representation of ecosystems and watersheds in ways that advance the sophistication and capabilities of local, regional, and larger-scale models. Using new measurements, field experiments, and more sophisticated modeling and/or synthesis studies, research funded through this FOA will address three challenges: (1) ecological and environmental dynamics involving terrestrial-aquatic interfaces (TAI); (2) perturbations and disturbances affecting terrestrial ecosystems and watersheds; and (3) novel methods for capturing “hot spots” and “hot moments” of biogeochemical activity. All applications are required to clearly delineate an integrative, hypothesis-driven approach and describe the existing needs/gaps in state-of-the-art models. Applicants should provide details on how the results of the proposed research will be used to improve the predictability and sophistication of integrated watershed systems and/or terrestrial ecosystem models.

Current information on ESS can be found at ess.science.energy.gov.

The principal investigator (PI) and anyone submitting on the PI’s behalf must register for an account in DOE’s Portfolio Analysis and Management System (PAMS) before a pre-application can be submitted. All PIs and those submitting pre-applications on behalf of PIs are encouraged to establish PAMS accounts as soon as possible to avoid submission delays.

  • Pre-Applications (Required) Due: December 17, 2020, 5:00 pm Eastern Time
  • Proposals Due: March 4, 2021, 11:59 pm Eastern Time

Please see the announcement for additional details. For any questions, please contact the following ESS program managers: Jennifer Arrigo ([email protected]) and Brian Benscoter ([email protected]).