The Natural Hazards Engineering community continues to work with the NSF to outline the next steps for NHERI and the next generation of StEER. We wanted to provide some important updates on this process and its implications for StEER operations.

StEER has been operating in a no-cost extension (NCE) of its second 3-year award to allow time for this vision to unfold; that NCE will conclude on June 30, 2026. 

Effective July 1, StEER will no longer activate in response to natural hazards events. The network will maintain basic member operations from July 1 to September 30, 2026 when our current award closes. During this time we will:

1. Support basic member services, e.g., processing new memberships, maintaining access to the Fulcrum App;

2. Publish our remaining legacy datasets in DesignSafe;

3. Complete the consolidation of our app suite in Fulcrum;

4. Finalize and curate documentation used for network operations.

The Fulcrum app and resources (guidance documents, templates, etc.) will remain available to the community through our website resource page and Shared Google Drive to self-organize responses to hazard events until our grant concludes September 30, 2026.

Regarding responses to events, StEER would not activate virtual teams after July 1, as we were instructed by NSF to use the final three months of the award period to finalize legacy datasets and various documentation to ensure that everything is preserved. That said, our team is actively discussing options for sustaining some of these activities, such as virtual responses, beyond the support currently provided by NSF. We will certainly keep our members updated on both formal and informal opportunities to remain engaged as we learn more from NSF next month.

We will continue to keep the community updated over the coming months regarding next steps and transitions after September 30, 2026, including possible workshops to envision a future model for StEER.

Sincerely,