Region 7 Science Program

What is the Regional Science Program?

The Regional Science Program links EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) with EPA's Regional Offices and emphasizes building networks and partnerships between Regional and ORD scientists, effectively transferring research results on high-priority regional science issues and conducting science outreach to the states, tribes, and communities.

On this page:

Success Stories
ORD Research and Small Business Funding Opportunities
Upcoming ORD Events, Webinars and Training
ORD Publications, Products, Resources and Toolkits

EPA Region 7’s Science Priorities aim to:

Study impacts of emerging contaminants such as PFAS, ethylene oxide (EtO), and microplastics.
Use social science research to assist communities with climate and resiliency planning.
Evaluate/address climate impacts of harmful algal blooms and nutrients on water resources.
Develop remote sensing techniques to measure burn areas/impacts on downwind communities.
Identify preventive and mitigating approaches for community resiliency.
Develop real-time measurement methodologies to characterize EtO emissions.
Develop technologies to expedite large-scale, complex mining/mineral processing site remediation.

The cross-cutting Issues of technical support, environmental justice, climate change, and reuse are included in each science priority.

Success Stories

Region 7 Science Program Webinar – REHD: Exploring Environmental Health Data Using Interactive Data Visualization Application

This Nov. 6 informational webinar featured experts from across EPA who’ve worked on updating the novel Regional Environmental Health Data Visualization app (REHD). REHD pulls information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC's) National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network and EPA’s EJSCREEN: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool portals, alongside other data using Application Programming Interface (API) connections. The web app gives users the ability to use maps, a scatterplot, trendlines, and a sortable data table/chart to simultaneously visualize relationships of several data variables for multiple counties or all counties in the United States.

EPA recently assembled a new cross-Agency team of experts to further enhance these tools by updating the app interface to make it more user-friendly, add health impact assessments (HIAs), and improve the app based on public feedback. Incorporating HIAs into the REHD tool will assist the EPA in conducting consistent, cumulative impact assessments that integrate environmental justice analysis and health impacts, while ensuring use of the most current information. The app is useful because it helps with getting a consistent, transparent message to the public and it allows the user to interactively visualize health and environmental data variables. REHD not only helps with noting data gaps and prioritizing areas of interest, but it could also assist with noting relevant health and environmental data relationships while also getting data to our fingertips quickly and reliably.

View the Nov. 6 recording.

This webinar was designed to obtain feedback as part of the process of developing this tool. Please provide your feedback!

ORD Research and Small Business Funding Opportunities

EPA Research Grants – EPA’s Research Grants Program aims to stimulate and support scientific and engineering research that advances EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment.

Research Grant Topics (on left at link above): Air Research, Climate Change Research, Ecosystems Research, Health Research, Safer Chemicals Research, Sustainability Research, and Water Research
Opens and closes: See “Open RFAs” at link above
Award amounts: Vary by topic

If you are interested in receiving email RFA updates on research funding opportunities, sign up on EPA’s website.

Recording of Region 7 Science Program/ORD Special Webinar: EPA STAR and P3 Program Overview

Recorded Monday, June 26, 2023
Want to learn more about ORD’s research funding opportunities for colleges and universities? ORD’s Dr. Intaek Hahn conducted a one-hour webinar on two researching funding opportunities:
- Science to Achieve Results (STAR)
- People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Student Design Competition
Dr. Hahn presented on both STAR and P3, solicitation announcements, criteria, process for submittals, timelines, and the process from submission to award to implementation.

Upcoming ORD Events, Webinars and Training

ORD-OW Small Drinking Water Systems Webinar Series (Special Extended Webinar) – Lead Reduction Updates and Lead Service Line Identification and Replacement

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, from noon to 3 p.m. CST
Informational flyer
Register here

ORD Healthy and Resilient Communities Research Webinar Series – Allostatic Load and Epigenetic Age Acceleration as Composite Measures of Cumulative Health Impacts of Environmental, Social, and Lifestyle Factors

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, from 2 to 3 p.m. CST
Register here

ORD posts upcoming events, webinars and training several months in advance, which EPA's research staff is participating in, hosting, or supporting in other ways.

Check out the EPA Research Events page often for updates.

ORD Publications, Products, Resources and Toolkits

Strategic Research Action Plans, Fiscal Years 2023-2026

ORD published the FY23-26 Strategic Research Action Plans (StRAPs) for these six National Research Programs (NRPs):

Air, Climate, and Energy (ACE)
Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS)
Health and Environmental Risk Assessment (HERA)
Homeland Security (HS)
Safe and Sustainable Water Resources (SSWR)
Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC)

As part of the StRAP development process, ORD identified six cross-cutting topics – environmental justice, climate change, cumulative impacts, community resilience, children’s environmental health, and contaminants of immediate and emerging concern – for close coordination throughout strategic research planning and implementation. Importantly, the plans also anticipate emerging issues.

Region 7 had 23 representatives (internal and external) working with ORD to incorporate our science priorities into the StRAP. This is the most involvement Region 7 ever had, and the Region hopes to continue that level of involvement in future StRAPs to address our science needs.

Story Map

Region 7 Science Program’s Research Projects

In this story map, you can learn about the Region’s collaborative research projects that address environmental and health concerns. Extensive details and interactive maps about the 40-plus projects are in six categories: Water, Air, Cleanup and Remediation, Tool/Method Development, Contaminants of Concern, and SBIR/P3/STAR.