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NSF Unidata Equipment Awards

NSF Unidata Equipment Awards

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The primary purpose of the NSF Unidata Community Equipment Awards is to encourage new members from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the geosciences to join the NSF Unidata community, and for existing members to continue their active participation so as to enhance the community process.

Between 2003 and 2024, NSF Unidata has awarded $1,535,702 to 115 different projects at 66 colleges and universities through the Community Equipment Awards program.

Past equipment awards have funded projects including:

  • Installing or upgrading servers to ingest IDD data streams
  • Creating electronic map walls
  • Installing THREDDS Data Servers to make data available locally and regionally
  • Installing computing lab hardware to run visualization software such as AWIPS and IDV
  • Purchasing cloud computing resources for specific educational or research projects

Click on the links below to find information projects that received awards in previous years.

About the Awards

Equipment AwardsThe primary purpose of the NSF Unidata Community Equipment Awards is to encourage new members from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the geosciences to join the NSF Unidata community, and for existing members to continue their active participation so as to enhance the community process. We will accept equipment proposals from academic institutions engaged in teaching and research in the geosciences for the deployment of NSF Unidata-supported systems.

It is the intent of this award program to assist institutions wishing to participate actively in the NSF Unidata community; to assist those who have participated actively in the past but need system upgrades to meet the standards currently recommended for deploying NSF Unidata systems; and to assist organizations from disciplines outside of the atmospheric community who can provide and support important and relevant datasets and tools to the NSF Unidata community at no cost.

Small institutions, institutions that have not previously submitted proposals to this program, and institutions outside NSF Unidata's traditional atmospheric sciences community are especially encouraged to apply.

A Brief History of the Awards
For many years the National Science Foundation (NSF) administered the NSF Unidata Equipment Awards program, which was initially developed to assist smaller universities with becoming part of the NSF Unidata community. In 2001, NSF decided that the program had become too expensive for them to administer, so with encouragement from the Policy Committee (now the Strategic Advisory Committee) and User Committee, NSF Unidata proposed to take over the administration of the Equipment Awards. This included assembling a panel of community members to review proposals and make recommendations regarding funding. NSF granted approval and in 2003 NSF Unidata ran the first competitive process. Each year NSF Unidata is committed to setting aside money from core funds to continue the Equipment Awards program.
Questions About the Equipment Awards?
Questions or comments about the Equipment Awards can be sent to: support-egrants@unidata.ucar.edu