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Title: Dear Colleague Letter on Plans for the Future of Earthquake 
       Engineering Research Infrastructure Support beyond 2014
Date: 08/27/10

NSF 10-071

Dear Colleague Letter on Plans for the Future of Earthquake Engineering
Research Infrastructure Support beyond 2014

   The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation
   (NEES) will complete ten years of National Science Foundation (NSF)
   support for operations and research at the end of fiscal year (FY)
   2014. Through NSF support, NEES was constructed as a Major Research
   Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) project during
   2000-2004. Upon completion of construction, NEES opened as a
   multi-user research infrastructure, for a planned ten-year period of
   NSF-supported research and operations, on October 1, 2004. NEES
   currently consists of 14 earthquake engineering experimental
   facilities located at universities around the U.S., with supporting
   cyberinfrastructure. More information about the NEES infrastructure is
   available at [1]http://www.nees.org. To assist with future planning of
   earthquake engineering research infrastructure beyond 2014, NSF has
   provided support for two studies that will assess future research and
   research infrastructure needs for earthquake engineering. This letter
   is to inform you of the plans for these two studies and to encourage
   community input and participation in these studies.

   First, to develop the next-generation earthquake engineering research
   agenda and research infrastructure needs beyond 2014, NSF is providing
   support to the National Academy of Sciences, under award CMMI-1047519,
   to convene a National Research Council (NRC) committee, under the
   NRC's Division on Earth and Life Studies, Board on Earth Sciences and
   Resources, to organize a community workshop on the Grand Challenges
   for earthquake engineering research. This workshop will bring together
   experts to identify: (1) the high-priority Grand Challenges in basic
   earthquake engineering research that require a network of earthquake
   engineering experimental facilities and cyberinfrastructure, and (2)
   the networked earthquake engineering experimental capabilities and
   cyberinfrastructure tools required to address these Grand Challenges.
   Workshop attendees will be asked to describe the experimental
   infrastructure capabilities and cyberinfrastructure tools in terms of
   requirements, rather than by reference to any existing or anticipated
   specific facilities. The workshop will be held in fall 2010 at the
   National Academies Beckman Center in Irvine, CA. The NRC committee
   will prepare a workshop report summarizing the Grand Challenges and
   the requirements for networked facilities and cyberinfrastructure. The
   workshop report will be completed in early 2011.

   The second study, to be conducted by the Science and Technology Policy
   Institute (STPI), a NSF Federally Funded Research and Development
   Center, will build upon and complement the National Academies study
   described above. STPI was created to serve the White House Office of
   Science and Technology Policy, as well as the broader federal
   scientific enterprise, including the NSF. The NSF Directorate for
   Engineering has tasked STPI to identify potential scenarios for the
   future of NSF-supported earthquake engineering facilities (NSF
   Contract AST-1045173). As part of this study, STPI will solicit input
   from the earthquake engineering community to identify the priorities
   for integrated experimental and cyber facilities that are most
   critical to address the Grand Challenges in basic earthquake
   engineering research. This second study will be completed in spring
   2012. The web site ([2]https://collab.ida.org/eeforum) is currently
   under construction, as the forum is scheduled to occur in Fall 2010.
   If you would like to be notified when the site becomes active, please
   email STPI at [3]EEForum@ida.org.

   After careful consideration of the recommendations from these two
   studies during 2012, NSF intends to inform the earthquake engineering
   community in fall 2012 of its plans beyond 2014 for future multi-user
   earthquake engineering research infrastructure.

   Questions or comments should be directed to Joy Pauschke, NEES Program
   Director, 703-292-7024, [4]jpauschk@nsf.gov.

   Sincerely,

   Steven H. McKnight
   Director, Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation

References

   1. http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.nees.org
   2. http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?https://collab.ida.org/eeforum
   3. mailto:EEForum@ida.org
   4. mailto:jpauschk@nsf.gov