US: NIST awards $20 million for research center to help communities increase resilience to disaster

San Diego - The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today that it has awarded a $20 million cooperative agreement to Colorado State University (CSU) to establish the Community Resilience Center of Excellence. Working with NIST researchers and partners from 10 other universities, the center will develop computer tools to help local governments decide how each can best invest resources intended to lessen the impact of extreme weather and other hazard events on buildings and infrastructure and to recover rapidly in their aftermath.

The Fort Collins-based center will receive $4 million annually for five years.

“The tools developed by the center will help to further advance the important goal of disaster resilience from ambitious concept to cost-effective solutions that communities can implement over time,” said NIST Acting Director Willie May.

Center-developed tools will enable communities to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative measures intended to improve resilience and minimize post-disaster disruption and recovery time. These tools will improve decision-making so that communities can build a “business case” for the measures they take.

The award was announced at the NIST Disaster Resilience Workshop in Del Mar, Calif., the fourth in a series of regional workshops to gather input from a broad network of stakeholders as the agency drafts its Disaster Resilience Framework.

To read the full press release visit the link below.