Trends in Multidisciplinary Hazard and Disaster Research: A 1982-2017 Case Study

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Disaster Management
• Social Sciences

Background:

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded extensive research on extreme events and natural disasters through several key programs.
• From 1982 to 2017, 539 awards totaling approximately $450 million were disbursed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze trends in hazard and disaster research funding.
• To explore the correlation between research topics, multidisciplinary team composition, and funding amounts.

Main Methods:

• Review of award data including active dates, funding amounts, hazards studied, and principal investigator (PI) affiliations.
• Analysis of relationships between discipline, topic, and funding across 539 NSF awards.

Main Results:

• A positive correlation exists between higher award funding and larger multidisciplinary PI teams (4+ PIs), though these teams represent only 18% of awards.
• General hazard/disaster research topics received the most awards but not the highest average funding.
• Annual award numbers and total funding show an increasing trend over the study period.

Conclusions:

• Funding allocation could be optimized through deeper analysis of research topics and funding patterns.
• Trends indicate a move towards more equal representation of engineers and social scientists in multidisciplinary hazard research teams.