Climate Program Office (CPO) Extreme Heat Risk Initiative Competition, FY2021 | NOAA OAR CPO 2021 2006738

Opportunity Information: Apply for NOAA OAR CPO 2021 2006738

The Climate Program Office (CPO) Extreme Heat Risk Initiative Competition, FY2021 is a NOAA funding opportunity aimed at improving how the United States understands and manages the growing risks of extreme heat, especially in urban areas. The opportunity is housed within NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and is part of CPO's broader climate portfolio, which funds competitive work in climate science, climate assessments, decision support research, outreach, education, and capacity-building. The core problem the program is trying to tackle is that extreme heat is not just a weather inconvenience; it creates real economic costs, strains public health systems, threatens safety, and can even raise security concerns when infrastructure and essential services are stressed.

This competition is framed as part of CPO's Climate Risk Areas Initiative, where CPO is organizing its efforts around several high-priority climate risk themes to produce improvements in scientific understanding and practical capabilities that lead to user-driven outcomes. In other words, the program is not only interested in advancing research for its own sake, but in work that helps decision-makers, communities, and practitioners actually use climate knowledge in ways that increase resilience. Extreme heat is one of four initial risk areas under this initiative, alongside coastal inundation, marine ecosystems, and water resources. The extreme heat focus reflects the increasing frequency and severity of high-heat events, the amplified impacts of heat in cities (including urban heat island effects), and the unequal burden heat can place on vulnerable populations.

The Department of Commerce, through NOAA, is offering this opportunity as a discretionary program using either grants or cooperative agreements. The relevant CFDA number listed for the program is 11.431, which is commonly associated with NOAA climate and atmospheric research and related activities. The funding announcement was created on December 8, 2020, with an original application deadline of February 15, 2021. NOAA anticipated making about five awards under this competition, with an award ceiling of $150,000 per award. That funding level suggests projects were expected to be targeted and outcome-oriented, potentially supporting pilot efforts, focused research deliverables, stakeholder engagement activities, tool development, or applied analyses that can be completed on a modest budget while still contributing meaningful advances to heat risk understanding and response.

Eligibility is labeled broadly as "Others" with additional eligibility details referenced in the full notice, which typically means that the opportunity may be open to a range of applicant types depending on the specific terms NOAA sets out (often including universities, nonprofits, for-profit entities, state and local governments, tribal entities, and other research or community-based organizations). Because the initiative emphasizes user-driven outcomes, competitive proposals would generally be expected to demonstrate clear connections to real-world decision needs, identify who the intended users are, and explain how the work will translate into improved understanding or capabilities for managing heat risk.

A notable element of the announcement is its explicit encouragement for applicants and awardees to support diversity and inclusion in both proposal design and project implementation. The notice defines diversity as the collection of individual attributes that help organizations achieve objectives, and inclusion as a culture that connects each employee to the organization. The underlying point is that strengthening diversity and inclusion improves creativity, productivity, and the overall vitality of the climate research community. In the context of extreme heat, this emphasis also aligns with the reality that heat impacts often fall disproportionately on certain communities, and that effective solutions typically require engagement across disciplines, sectors, and lived experiences.

In practical terms, this opportunity can be understood as NOAA CPO's attempt to move the extreme heat conversation forward by funding work that bridges climate science and on-the-ground decision-making. It sits within a larger strategy of organizing NOAA's climate efforts around major risk areas, and it seeks projects that improve understanding and actionable capability, not just academic knowledge. For more context on how extreme heat fits into NOAA CPO's broader Climate Risk Areas Initiative, the announcement points applicants to CPO's initiative webpage.

• The Department of Commerce in the environment, natural resources, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Climate Program Office (CPO) Extreme Heat Risk Initiative Competition, FY2021" 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 Dec 08, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 15, 2021. (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 $150,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for NOAA OAR CPO 2021 2006738

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: