FY2025 Weather Program Office Research Program Announcement - Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBES)

NOAA’s Weather Program Office (WPO, wpo.noaa.gov/nofo) is soliciting proposals for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBES) grant competition from this funding opportunity notification. The program competition's approximate total award funding per year is $1,500,000.00.

Recent societal impacts from hurricanes, floods, snow storms, tornadoes, and wildfires demonstrates that, although there have been considerable advances in weather prediction and forecasting, there is a continual need to understand the intersection of human behavior and meteorology. A variety of social, behavioral, and environmental factors “affect how we prepare for, observe, predict, respond to, and are impacted by weather hazards” (NASEM, 2018. doi:10.17226/24865). Thus, social, behavioral, and economic science (SBES) research plays a critical role in connecting NOAA's weather forecast information and improvements to the public’s growing forecast needs.

The Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 further recognizes the importance of SBES science integration within the larger weather enterprise by emphasizing the need to improve our understanding of how people (e.g., NWS stakeholders, forecasters, the public) receive, interpret, and respond to warnings and forecasts of weather events that endanger life and property, as well as how to best communicate weather events to various stakeholders. Additionally, the NOAA Science Advisory Board published a report titled Priorities in Weather Research with a recommendation to “Increase investments in social and human behavioral data collection and sciences to better understand how weather products are used and to support co-development of improved products” (p.6 https://sab.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/PWR-Report_Final_12-9-21.pdf).

For the purposes of NOAA-funded projects, the maturity of projects is broadly classified using Readiness Levels (RLs), as adopted by NOAA and other federal agencies. The numerical RL scale from 1 to 9 is designed to track project maturity across a progressive spectrum from research to development to demonstration to deployment. Projects appropriate for this competition range from Readiness Level (RL) 2 to RL 8 and have potential to transition to operations at either NOAA or the weather and water enterprise within the next 3 to 7 years. Additional information can be found in the Program Objectives (Section I.A) and Priorities (Section I.B), and definitions of RLs can be found in the WPO FY25 General Information Sheet (herein referred to as the “General Information Sheet”) accompanying this announcement.

NOAA, OAR, and WPO encourage applicants and awardees to write their proposals and perform their work in a manner consistent with NOAA’s core values, including those on diversity, inclusion, accessibility, civil rights, and scientific integrity. Promoting diversity and inclusion improves creativity, productivity, and the vitality of the weather and water research community in which WPO engages. Further information can be found at https://www.noaa.gov/organization/inclusion-and-civil-rights/diversity-and-inclusion and https://research.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FinalDraft-OAR-DEI-StrategicPlan-07Sep2021.docx.pdf.

Included under the ‘Related Documents’ tab of this announcement are several Information Sheets as well as external forms required to be submitted with proposals. If there is any conflicting information between the NOFO announcement and the attached Information Sheets, then the NOFO announcement takes priority and should be followed over any external attachments.