Each year, SCEC recruits research projects, workshops, and trainings from the broader community to contribute to the Center’s programs.
The Statewide California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is committed to sustaining a research collaboration for basic and applied earthquake science that is agile, open to new investigators, and has the authority to convene a global platform for multidisciplinary research, workforce development, and community engagement across earthquake science. SCEC’s vision is to support a diverse community of scientists and students to develop better, data-validated models of earthquake processes and improve our understanding and ability to predict earthquake behavior. The SCEC collaboration welcomes new investigators with fresh perspectives and from diverse backgrounds to join our community and take advantage of our resources and opportunities.
Science Plan and Roadmap
The SCEC Science Plan emphasizes new opportunities enabled by a geographic scope that now includes the entire transform plate boundary system of California. It also provides a roadmap on how to distribute efforts focused on California to advance SCEC’s scientific and societal impact goals. Each year, SCEC solicits projects through a competitive process, typically attracting hundreds of investigators to contribute to the Center’s programs and activities.
The Path Ahead: Co-Envisioning SCEC’s Next Phase
At SCEC2025, Center Director Ahmed Elbanna (USC) shared his vision to advance SCEC through a “team science” approach for tackling complex challenges.
Technical Activity Groups
TAGs represent an evolution of SCEC’s long‑standing approach to coordinated, investigator‑driven research. Designed to organize the community around high‑priority interdisciplinary challenges, TAGs are intended to bring together diverse teams to address problems that are difficult to tackle within smaller, individually scoped projects.
We look forward to receiving your TAG proposals to participate in the SCEC collaboration!
SCEC implemented a two‑phase proposal process for the 2026 Collaboration Plan to advance its Team‑Science vision. The first phase, completed in fall 2025, focused on sustaining the community and preserving core capabilities through workshops and activities that concluded major initiatives, highlighted Community Earth Models, integrated data and simulations for seismic hazard reduction, advanced key science milestones, and supported workforce development and engagement. In parallel, SCEC solicited Letters of Intent (LOIs) to surface and coordinate concepts for future interdisciplinary team‑science efforts.
This solicitation represents the second phase—a call for proposals to establish Technical Activity Groups (TAGs). TAGs are envisioned as coordinated, community‑facing teams that integrate expertise across disciplines and leverage SCEC’s shared data, models, and infrastructure to address high‑priority scientific and translational challenges related to earthquake processes, seismic hazard, and preparedness in California and beyond. The strong community response to the LOI stage provides a foundation for launching the inaugural cohort of SCEC TAGs in 2026.
Successful TAGs will function as hubs for synthesis, coordination, and sustained community engagement, producing outcomes that extend beyond individual contributions. TAG proposals must align with SCEC science priorities, leverage and advance SCEC data and infrastructure, integrate efforts across investigators and disciplines, and deliver products broadly useful to the community. TAGs will operate under defined work plans and timelines and may receive support for workshops, targeted activities, and/or technical or logistical assistance from SCEC.
Interested researchers are encouraged to review these TAG concepts and reach out to TAG coordinators where their expertise could contribute. Teams that did not submit a Letter of Intent remain fully eligible to submit a proposal, provided it is responsive to one or more SCEC objectives.
SCEC Virtual Town Hall held on April 3, 2026
View the recording of the SCEC Virtual Town hall where questions were addressed about the 2026 Science Plan, the TAG proposal solicitation, and proposal requirements.
Submit a Technical Activity Group (TAG) Proposal
Propose a new TAG to address one or more of SCEC’s seven high-priority scientific and translational objectives for the 2026–2029 period.
See TAG concepts currently under development
The breadth of TAG concepts submitted illustrates the scientific opportunities ahead. Contact the TAG coordinators about contributing.
2025 SCEC Research Highlights
Co-Director and SSC Chair Greg Beroza (Stanford) and PRC Chair Alice Gabriel (UCSD) present research highlights from the Statewide California Earthquake Center at SCEC2025.
While we anticipate that the Technical Activity Group (TAG) awards will fall within a broad range of approximately $15,000 to $100,000 per year, these amounts are intended to calibrate expectations rather than serve as fixed limits. Requested budgets should be appropriate to the proposed objectives, milestones, and deliverables and should reflect realistic tradeoffs among scope, timeline, and available resources. SCEC awards are funded as subcontracts from USC, with a 1-year performance period.
SCEC Virtual Town Hall / Q&A
April 3, 2026 (10-11am PDT)
Proposals Due to SCEC
May 8, 2026
Review of Submitted Proposals
May-June 2026
Decision Notifications
July-August 2026
Contact us if you have questions about proposals to SCEC.
Prospective investigators should read the SCEC Community Science Plan in its entirety, and understand the expectations for participation in the SCEC collaboration (see Section 6 Investigator Responsibilities). Individual investigators should ensure they have a current SCEC.org account, have updated their profile information, and submitted any past due reports.
Refer to the SCEC Community Science Plan for detailed information. To be complete, your proposal must include all required information and be submitted as a single PDF file to the SCEC website by the due date. Incomplete proposals will not be considered.
Proposals will be evaluated using the criteria described in Section 4.2 of the Science Plan, which reflect SCEC’s goals for coordinated, community‑driven research and the expectations outlined in the Proposal Submission Guidelines (Section 3). Reviewers will assess proposals as integrated Technical Activity Groups (TAGs), emphasizing coherence, coordination, and collective impact aligned with SCEC’s mission and program objectives. When multiple proposals address overlapping or closely related themes, SCEC may consider opportunities for coordination or prioritization after proposal‑level evaluation and prior to final funding decisions to promote program balance, complementarity, and overall portfolio impact.
