Climate Program Office (CPO), Climate and Societal Interactions (CSI) Division — Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) | NOAA OAR CPO 2023 2007771

Opportunity Information: Apply for NOAA OAR CPO 2023 2007771

This funding opportunity comes from the Department of Commerce through NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, specifically the Climate Program Office (CPO) within the Climate and Societal Interactions (CSI) Division. It is a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) supported Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity focused on helping U.S. communities (including territories) adapt to two escalating climate-related hazards: flooding and wildfire. NOAA frames these hazards as already extremely costly, citing more than $20 billion in damages since 2020, and emphasizes that the most severe impacts often fall on "frontline communities" meaning communities that are disproportionately vulnerable and harmed due to systemic and historical inequities, environmental injustice, and related socioeconomic disparities. The NOFO also stresses that community identity and vulnerability are complex and best defined by communities themselves, and that effective adaptation depends on understanding local context rather than forcing one-size-fits-all labels or solutions.

At its core, the program is designed to strengthen climate adaptation planning and on-the-ground action by funding projects that combine applied research with deep community engagement. NOAA uses a specific definition of "collaborative research and community engagement": building trusted, sustained partnerships among scientists, decision-makers, and communities so they can jointly define adaptation needs, co-produce credible and usable knowledge, and translate that knowledge into community-defined plans that include implementable solutions. The intention is not just to study risks in the abstract, but to improve the real-world processes that lead to equitable decisions, better plans, and investments that actually reduce flooding and wildfire impacts. The work is positioned as foundational to delivering climate services that are relevant and responsive, especially for communities that have historically been excluded from planning and investment decisions.

NOAA ties these awards directly to BIL goals around protecting life and property and improving decision support for hazard mitigation. The expected outcomes are framed around building national adaptive capacity in three practical ways: first, producing new locally relevant knowledge and strategies that reduce flood and wildfire risks in frontline communities; second, testing and evaluating whether existing engagement methods and interdisciplinary approaches can be scaled up or transferred to other places; and third, piloting new engagement methods and new ways of integrating social science and other interdisciplinary knowledge into adaptation planning specifically for flooding and wildfire. In other words, the program is as much about improving the "how" of adaptation planning (processes, participation, decision pathways, capacity building) as it is about improving the "what" (information, strategies, and solutions).

Funding is offered via cooperative agreements, reflecting NOAA's expectation of active involvement during the period of performance rather than a hands-off grant model. The total funding across the NOFO is approximately $3.6 million for FY22/23, and NOAA anticipates making around 12 awards. Individual awards have a stated ceiling of $500,000. The opportunity is listed as discretionary and aligned with activity categories that include environment, natural resources, science and technology R&D, and infrastructure-related themes under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act framework.

The NOFO is structured into three separate but related competitions. The first competition, funded at roughly $800,000, targets improving engagement methods for coastal resilience planning. This emphasizes developing, refining, or validating approaches that bring communities meaningfully into coastal adaptation work, likely including how partners communicate risk, build trust, incorporate local knowledge, and create planning processes that frontline residents can shape and benefit from. The second competition is the largest, at about $1.87 million, and focuses on assessing tradeoffs and co-benefits in complex decisions for communities facing coastal inundation and/or inland flooding. This area is aimed at decision-making under real constraints and competing priorities, such as balancing protection of housing, ecosystems, livelihoods, cultural resources, and public infrastructure, while also identifying actions that deliver multiple benefits (for example, flood mitigation that also improves public health, access, or economic resilience). The third competition, funded at about $930,000, shifts to wildfire by examining how social infrastructure interacts with wildfire risk and what that means for community adaptive capacity. "Social infrastructure" here can be understood as the networks, institutions, services, relationships, and local organizations that enable communities to prepare, respond, and recover; the competition centers on how those social systems shape vulnerability and resilience and how they can be strengthened as part of wildfire adaptation.

A defining eligibility and program design feature is that projects must leverage the Climate Adaptation Partnerships (CAP) program, formerly known as the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program. CAP/RISA is described as a long-running network of regionally focused applied research and engagement teams with decades of experience working with local partners on climate impacts. For this NOFO, proposals are meant to work across existing CAP/RISA teams and related expansion regions to test approaches, scale what works, and transfer knowledge across geographies to build broader national capacity. Importantly, the Principal Investigator must be a member of a current CAP/RISA team, and the eligibility language notes "Others" with additional clarifications in the NOFO about who can apply and what team compositions are acceptable. The rationale is that CAP/RISA teams are already embedded in their regions, have established trust with decision-makers and community members, and understand the physical and social dynamics that determine how climate risks play out locally; NOAA is using that foundation to accelerate equitable, usable adaptation outcomes tied specifically to flooding and wildfire.

Key administrative details included in the listing are the opportunity number (NOAA OAR CPO 2023 2007771), the CFDA number (11.431), and the original timeline showing a creation date of January 3, 2023 with an original closing date of March 29, 2023. Overall, the opportunity is best summarized as a targeted NOAA BIL investment in people-centered, partnership-driven climate adaptation work that improves how communities, especially frontline communities, plan for and reduce risks from flooding and wildfire, while also producing methods and insights that can be replicated beyond a single project location.

• The Department of Commerce in the business and commerce, environment, infrastructure investment and jobs act (iija), natural resources, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Climate Program Office (CPO), Climate and Societal Interactions (CSI) Division — Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 11.431.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jan 03, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 29, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for NOAA OAR CPO 2023 2007771

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