Announcing CIVIC 2024 Stage 1 Teams

Washington, DC — The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced the latest awardees of the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). “The NSF CIVIC Program Team is excited to announce its newest set of awards for the CIVIC program, which will transition new and emerging scientific and engineering ideas towards solving the most pressing challenges communities across the US are facing”, said Dr. Vishal Sharma, Program Director at NSF.

The Civic Innovation Challenge is a multi-agency, federal government research and action competition that aims to fund ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects that address community-identified priorities — from large to small and from rural to urban — across the US.

CIVIC consists of two tracks:

• Track A focuses on Climate and Environmental Instability., in the context of pre-disaster action around adaptation, resilience, and mitigation.
• Track B focuses on Resources and Service equity, with projects focused on bridging the gap between essential resources and services, and community needs.

In this iteration of CIVIC, all 52 Stage 1 grantees, which span 36 states and Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have received funding for pilots in their local communities. The teams will utilize this funding to design projects that offer novel and innovative solutions to identified needs-based issues in their communities. Teams that have been selected for this first round are eligible to receive awards of up to $75,000 and will have 6-months to complete their work. To learn more about the recently announced Stage 1 teams, please visit: https://nsfcivicinnovation.org/civic-2024-stage-1-announcement/.

The CIVIC program team will support the work of the CIVIC grantees by facilitating a community of practice among awardees. This community of practice will support teams in retaining the transferability and sustainability of their projects. “We are proud to support the efforts of the Stage 1 grantees as they collaborate with their communities to tackle challenges related to climate and equity,” said Kate Burns, Executive Director of MetroLab (MetroLab currently has a cooperative agreement (award #2223449) with NSF to support CIVIC).

In early 2025, Stage 1 CIVIC awardees will submit proposals for Stage 2 consideration. Teams that are selected for a second round of funding will be eligible for awards of up to $1 million to begin piloting and evaluating the projects designed during Stage 1.