The National Science Foundation Civic Innovation Challenge

The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced the launch of the Civic Innovation Challenge, a national research and action competition in the smart and connected communities domain. Teams will compete for awards of up to $1 million to support ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects that have the potential for scalable, sustainable, and transferable impact on community-identified priorities. Teams will include civic partners—such as local, state, and tribal government officials, and non-profit and community leaders—working together with technical and social science researchers. The Civic Innovation Challenge is funded with an anticipated $9 million in funding from NSF, DOE, and DHS. Access the NSF solicitation here.

While development of the Civic Innovation Challenge has been ongoing for over a year, the release of the Challenge comes as the world faces unprecedented obstacles in response to the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which is impacting healthcare, economic, and social systems. Although the collective energy and effort of communities must focus on the crisis at hand, community members, researchers, and leaders will soon also be considering how civic services and systems should be rebuilt to be stronger and more resilient once communities emerge from this crisis. As teams reflect on the focus areas of the Civic Innovation Challenge (tracks described below), they are encouraged to consider how both the current situation and other experiences in their communities uncover new challenges, motivate new questions, and highlight the need for new perspectives.

The Civic Innovation Challenge comprises two tracks, shaped by input from cities and communities from across the country at an Ideas Festival held in early 2019:

Communities and Mobility: Offering Better Mobility Options to Solve the Spatial Mismatch Between Housing Affordability and Jobs; and

Resilience to Natural Disasters: Equipping Communities for Greater Preparedness and Resilience to Natural Disasters.

The Challenge is organized in two stages. In the first stage, teams will compete for planning grants of up to $50,000 per team over a period of four months. Awards will be offered to approximately 12 teams per track and are expected to be made in Fall 2020. Planning grant applications are due on July 1, 2020. With the support of the planning grant, the selected teams will then refine their projects and compete for second-stage grants of up to $1 million per team over a period of 12 months; these awards will support ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects and will be offered to a cohort of awardees in each track. Only awardees of Stage 1 will be eligible to submit proposals for Stage 2.

“The Civic Innovation Challenge is the latest step by NSF to provide funding for high-need research areas with significant societal impact,” said Margaret Martonosi, NSF Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. “We are thrilled to partner with DOE and DHS to support community-based innovation. The structure of the Civic Innovation Challenge will allow for teams to learn from each other and develop transferable approaches poised to address key civic priorities on a national scale.”

In discussing the Communities and Mobility track, Daniel R. Simmons, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, said “DOE is proud to participate in the Civic Innovation Challenge and inspire communities and researchers to work together to develop affordable, innovative mobility options that better connect residents to work, critical services, and amenities. DOE’s national labs conduct cutting edge research encompassing transportation and mobility, and we are eager to build off of our existing knowledge-base to address this priority.”

In discussing the Resilience to Natural Disasters track, André Hentz, (Acting) Deputy Under Secretary for the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, remarked: “Natural disasters and crises like the COVID-19 outbreak requires resilience in cities and communities across the country and across the spectrum of planning, response and recovery efforts.”

Our federal, state and local customers need safe, reliable and secure tools to adapt to and respond to changing environments and emergencies, and to drive-down risk, according to Hentz. “DHS is excited to partner with NSF and invest in new ideas and tools to improve services and serve as living labs for innovative approaches. The discoveries and solutions generated through the Civic Innovation Challenge will make the nation more resilient.”

NSF has a cooperative agreement with MetroLab Network, a non-profit organization that will support the Civic Innovation Challenge through organizing outreach to prospective communities and teams in preparing for Stage 1 and Stage 2, as well as cultivating communities of practice among awardees to help teams develop methods and solutions transferable to communities across the U.S. MetroLab contributed to the design of the Civic Innovation Challenge, supported by a grant from NSF.

Through this multi-agency federal effort, the Civic Innovation Challenge prioritizes community engagement, transdisciplinary research, and real-world pilots to enhance science and create lasting community impact.

Because of competing priorities and schedule disruptions due to the COVID-19 crisis and response, several measures will be taken to accommodate those responding to the Civic Innovation Challenge:

- MetroLab will host webinars to share guidance on best practices in crafting research-community partnerships amid the current organizational responsibilities of civic leaders.

- In preparing the planning grant proposals, partnerships with civic leaders may be not be as developed as they would have been under typical circumstances; MetroLab will provide general guidance on how teams can ensure sufficient “buy-in” from civic leaders and enlist additional partners that will strengthen their planning grant efforts.