Office of Science Environmental System Science Grant

DOE National Laboratories [and other Federal agencies] are not eligible to receive financial assistance awards under this FOA, but they may submit collaborating applications in accordance with the instructions in Section IV, Part C, below. DOE National Laboratories whose collaborating applications are considered for funding may be invited to submit a proposal in the Office of Science’s PAMS website for the receipt of a Field Work Authorization. Other Federal agencies whose collaborating applications are considered for funding may be invited to submit a proposal in the Office of Science’s PAMS website for the receipt of an Interagency Award.

The goal of the Environmental System Science (ESS) activity in the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) is to advance a robust predictive understanding of terrestrial environments, extending from bedrock to the top of the vegetated canopy and from molecular to global scales in support of DOE’s energy and environmental missions. Using an iterative approach to model-driven experimentation and observation, interdisciplinary teams of scientists work to unravel the coupled physical, chemical and biological processes that control the structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems across vast spatial and temporal scales. State-of-science understanding is captured in conceptual theories and models which can be translated into a hierarchy of computational components and used to predict the system response to perturbations caused, for example, by changes in climate, land use/cover or contaminant loading. Basic understanding of the system structure and function is advanced through this iterative cycle of experimentation and observation by targeting key system components and processes that are suspected to most limit the predictive skill of the models.