Community Grants Programme of the SSA

Deadline: February 2024 | Community Grants Programme of the SSA 2024-2025

Through a modest funding programme, the Seismological Society of America aims to assist local initiatives that further the Society’s mission through the Community Grants Programme of the SSA 2024-2025.

Small scientific conferences, workshops, and events that offer our members and aspiring seismologists opportunity for networking, training, and education are eligible for assistance under the Community Grants Programme of the SSA 2024-2025.

Recipients of Grants

• To foster cooperation, knowledge exchange, and professional development among Arizona’s Earth and planetary geophysics communities, Claire Richardson (Arizona State University), Joseph Phillips (Northern Arizona University), and Ken Gourley (University of Arizona) received a $5,000 grant in July 2023 to establish the Arizona Collaborative Consortium for Earth and Space Science (ACCESS) First Annual Meeting.
• In February 2023, $5,000 was granted to Ericka Alinne Solano, Arturo Iglesias Mendoza, and Miguel Angel Rodrguez of UNAM in Mexico City to develop a brief course on the application of Bayesian inversion techniques with geophysical and seismological data.
• The program’s first-ever Community Grant was given out in July 2022 to help pay for a workshop on subduction zone science (SZS) that would take place in Seattle, Washington, in January 2023. Congratulations to SSA members Valerie Sahakian (assistant professor, University of Oregon), Debi Kilb (project scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography), and Joan Gomberg (USGS research geophysicist and affiliate professor, University of Washington), who each received a $5,000 grant to support the workshop.

The SSA will accept applications twice a year (in February and July) as follows:

• For the time frame of April 2024 to March 2025, in February 2024.
• For the time frame of September 2024 to August 2025, in July 2024
• In February 2024, applications will be accepted again.

Send inquiries to info@seismosoc.org.

The prerequisites for the proposal include:

• A two-paragraph summary of the meeting that includes the title, venue, and dates.
• A minimum of two Society members who organise meetings. The members must have been active for at least a calendar year.
• A thorough event schedule that contains:
• A summary of the meeting’s goals and purpose.
• List the names, qualifications, and specific duties of your leadership team.
• Identifying the intended audience and anticipated attendance. A proposed meeting agenda and plan.
• A rundown of the preparation procedure.
• A description of initiatives to reach out to underrepresented groups in seismology.
• A description of the venue for the event, including the amenities and setup needed to hold it.
• List comparable gatherings and explain how this one will be different.
• An explanation of how the incident will progress earthquake science and benefit the world seismological community.
• A thorough request for funding.
• It is advised to use matching grants, cost sharing, or other financial sources. The programme will only take into account requests to pay for direct expenditures. Institutional operating costs are not covered by grants.

For 2023, there is a $5,000 per request cap on grant proposals.

SSA Recognization

• Grant recipients must include SSA as a sponsor in their programming or writing in order to receive funding. The Seismological Society of America provided funding for [event name].

Choice Process

• Hiroshi Kawase, Carl Tape, and Karen Fischer serve on a board-level selection committee.

The following criteria will be used by the selection committee to evaluate applications:

• Relevance and significance to the SSA aim of developing earthquake science.
• Seismological community innovation. Does this event fill a programming void that already exists?
• Method used to create the event: Are the preparation and logistics for the event reasonable and in-depth?
• Background information on the participants and event organisers. Is the experience of the meeting’s planners pertinent to the objectives and anticipated results of the gathering?
• Is money from us necessary?
• Within one month following the application deadline, applicants should hear about the status of their applications.

Grant Distribution

• The $5000 award from the Seismological Society of America is specifically meant for the support and implementation of the scheduled conference, as specified in the recipient’s application, within the parameters of the Community Grants Programme. In order to ensure that all monies awarded will go solely towards holding the meeting, no part of the given funds may be used for institutional overhead costs.

For more information, visit the SSA official website.