Hurricane Irma

September 18, 2017

With the second major hurricane – Hurricane Irma – to strike the United States, the National Science Foundation and its staff remain strongly committed to supporting people and institutions in the areas affected by these storms.

Those of you in the impact area who are served by NSF can be assured that our focus is on enabling you to easily continue your research and education projects after you are convinced of your health and safety as well as that of your loved ones. We are taking immediate steps to provide assistance to current and potential awardees who are directly affected, and we are prepared to be as flexible, accommodating, and creative as possible in addressing your needs. We will work to ensure that proposal submission and other administrative deadlines are extended in order allow you to focus on more immediate concerns.

In the short term, NSF will extend the end dates of existing awards to institutions in the disaster area for awards that are scheduled to expire before October 1, 2017. However, it is vital that each investigator contact his or her Program Officer as soon as feasible to discuss how each NSF-supported project has been impacted. This is a necessary step in any further action that NSF may take with respect to funding. Program Officers stand ready to hear from you and support your needs.

We also have established an email address – naturaldisasters@nsf.gov – for inquiries by institutions, faculty and students on NSF awards for issues related to such natural disasters.

The Foundation will be posting updated information regarding specific, timely, and, relevant research assistance opportunities on this webpage of NSF.gov. We encourage you to visit the site regularly.

As with Hurricane Harvey, our thoughts are with all of those affected by Irma.

France A. Córdova
Director