News

This week, President Biden will host the third annual White House Tribal Nations Summit of the Biden-Harris Administration. During the Summit, the Biden-Harris Administration will also release a comprehensive 2023 Progress Report for Tribal Nations, which outlines historic progress the Administration has made over the past year to deliver on the President’s commitment to supporting Indian Country and address the top concerns of Tribal communities...

The Biden-Harris Administration released the Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for the Arctic Region (NSAR). The NSAR Implementation Plan (NSARIP) serves as a blueprint for an approach to realizing the vision set out in the NSAR and ensures continued collaboration with the wide array of stakeholders with interests in the Arctic.

ASSW 2024, which includes the Arctic Observing Summit (AOS), will be hosted in Edinburgh, Scotland during March 21-29, 2024. Proposals for AOS sessions and short statements are due Sep 1, 2023. Proposals for side meetings are due by Sep 30, 2023.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has released a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) on their intent to compete an Arctic Sciences Community Hub.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently published proposed draft revisions to their Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG; NSF 24-1) related to how Tribes are to be engaged when research may have an impact on Tribal interests and resources. 

The public notice is published in the Federal Register and the draft PAPPG is available on the NSF Policy Office website. To facilitate review, this posted PDF of the draft PAPPG shows the proposed changes marked in yellow with explanatory comments in the margins.

NSF is accepting comments from interested parties until June 12, 2023. Comments may be submitted directly through the Federal Register link by clicking on the green button, “Submit a Formal Comment.” Tribal Leaders or their designees may also email comments directly to policy@nsf.gov.  

Since 2017, the Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Program--one of NSF’s Ten Big Ideas-- has supported creative new directions for understanding and adapting to a rapidly changing Arctic. Projects funded through the NNA Program have made significant advances in Arctic-related research, education, workforce development, and the leveraging of science, engineering, and technology advances from a wide range of disciplines. Further, the NNA community has made important contributions regarding conducting community-engaged research and the co-production of knowledge.

NSF's Big Ideas ended as a unifying concept in FY 2023 as planned. Investments in these forward-looking research categories provided the groundwork for many new successes. Most of the Big Ideas will continue as core research programs or be superseded by new but related efforts. This Dear Colleague Letter announces the end of an active solicitation accepting new proposals to the NNA Program, as well as next steps for the NNA community.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) invites investigators at U.S. organizations to submit proposals to the Arctic Sciences Section in the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) within the Geosciences Directorate, to conduct research about the Arctic region.

The goal of this solicitation is to attract research proposals that advance a fundamental, process, and/or systems-level understanding of the Arctic's rapidly changing natural environment, social and cultural systems, and, where appropriate, to improve our capacity to project future change. The Arctic Sciences Section supports research focused on the Arctic region and its connectivity with lower latitudes. The scientific scope is aligned with, but not limited to, research priorities outlined in the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) five-year plan.

The Government of Greenland has presented its first national research strategy. The document defines how research in Greenland should develop over the next eight years and in which areas investments should be concentrated. 

The 2022 Arctic Report Card (ARC2022) provides an updated annual view into the state of the Arctic by checking in on key vital signs—eight defining elements of the Arctic's climate and environmental system. This report also samples critical and emerging topics across the Arctic, bringing into focus diverse collections of observations that help to assess the overall trajectory of Arctic change.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) jointly released new government-wide guidance  and an accompanying implementation memorandum for Federal Agencies on recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge in Federal research, policy, and decision making. This announcement coincides with the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2022 Tribal Nations Summit and responds to a 2021 OSTP-CEQ memorandum that called for development of the guidance with Tribal consultation and Indigenous community engagement, as well as agency, expert, and public input.