Proposed Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations | NOAA OAR CIPO 2021 2006682

Opportunity Information: Apply for NOAA OAR CIPO 2021 2006682

The Proposed Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations is a NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) funding opportunity to create a single Cooperative Institute focused on advancing the science and operational understanding of severe and high-impact weather. Structured as a cooperative agreement, it is meant to establish a long-term partnership where NOAA and the selected institute work closely together on research that can directly support forecasting, warning operations, and broader decision-making tied to extreme weather risks. The overall purpose is to improve NOAA's ability to understand, observe, model, and communicate threats from severe storms and other high-impact events, while also examining how these hazards may change over time as the climate changes.

The research scope is wide but clearly centered on the key physical processes that drive severe storms and their impacts. NOAA emphasizes work on mesoscale and storm-scale dynamics, which includes the atmospheric motions and storm structures that determine where storms form, how they intensify, and how they evolve into dangerous events like tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, and flash flooding. The opportunity also highlights atmospheric electricity, reflecting interest in lightning processes and their relationship to storm intensity and hazards. In addition, microphysics is a major focus area, covering how cloud and precipitation particles form and interact, which strongly influences rainfall rates, hail development, storm longevity, and radar signatures. Planetary boundary layer processes are also included, recognizing that the lowest part of the atmosphere, where storms ingest heat and moisture and interact with terrain and land surface conditions, often controls storm initiation and severity.

A substantial part of the institute's work is expected to involve developing and applying observational tools that can capture storms and their environments at high spatial and temporal resolution. The description calls out weather radar, profilers, mobile mesonets, and lidars as examples, along with similar platforms and techniques. This points to research that not only analyzes existing observations, but also improves the instruments, deployment strategies, retrieval methods, and data quality control approaches that make those observations more useful for both research and operations. The intent is to strengthen the observing system capabilities that feed situational awareness, diagnostic studies, and model initialization.

Equally important is the development and application of high-resolution numerical prediction models and the systems that make those models actionable. This includes improving physical parameterizations (the methods models use to represent processes like turbulence, cloud formation, and precipitation), advancing data assimilation systems that ingest observations into models to create better initial conditions, and building ensemble systems that run many model simulations to quantify uncertainty. NOAA specifically notes the need for ensemble-based uncertainty estimates, signaling interest in probabilistic forecasting approaches that better communicate confidence, risk ranges, and plausible outcomes rather than relying on single deterministic predictions.

Beyond the atmospheric science and modeling components, the opportunity explicitly includes social science and risk communication research. The institute is expected to improve understanding of the societal impacts of different strategies for informing the public about imminent severe weather. In practical terms, this can include studying how people interpret watches and warnings, how message timing and wording affect protective action, how false alarms and missed events influence trust, and how communication can be tailored for different communities and decision contexts such as schools, hospitals, emergency management, and vulnerable populations. The description also calls for research on the effects of climate change on the frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution of extreme weather, reflecting NOAA's interest in connecting near-term operational needs with longer-term changes in hazard patterns.

NOAA notes that the research portfolio has been defined to complement, rather than duplicate, work at other Cooperative Institutes, except where overlap provides clear benefits. This signals an expectation that applicants will map their proposed activities onto the existing NOAA CI landscape, explain where they add unique capability, and justify any intentional overlap as strategically valuable, for example through shared datasets, coordinated testbeds, or combined expertise that accelerates progress.

In terms of eligibility and structure, the Cooperative Institute may be a single academic or nonprofit degree-granting institution, or a consortium of multiple institutions, as long as the partnership collectively demonstrates an outstanding research program aligned with NOAA's mission. The opportunity strongly encourages collaboration beyond the core awardee, including partnerships with other federal agencies, private industry, non-traditional partners, NOAA laboratories and science/data centers, other Cooperative Institutes, Cooperative Science Centers, and Sea Grant Colleges. That emphasis suggests NOAA is looking for an institute that can serve as a hub, connecting fundamental research to operational transition pathways and building broader networks that increase the reach and usefulness of the work.

Administratively, this is a discretionary funding opportunity from the Department of Commerce (NOAA), issued under Funding Opportunity Number NOAA OAR CIPO 2021 2006682, with CFDA number 11.432. NOAA anticipated making one award, with an award ceiling listed as $208,000,000, indicating a potentially large, multi-year institute-scale investment. The original posting date was December 15, 2020, with an original closing date of February 15, 2021. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which typically implies substantial NOAA involvement in shaping, coordinating, and leveraging the institute's research and transition activities to support real-world forecasting and warning needs.

• The Department of Commerce in the environment, natural resources, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Proposed Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 11.432.
• This funding opportunity was created on Dec 15, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 15, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $208,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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