NGP RIDR Kicks Off Phase I at University of Montana

Leadership and solution leads from across the Northern Great Plains gathered in Missoula January 21–22 to align on expectations, surface regional challenges, and set the direction for Phase I of the NSF-funded drought resiliency incubator.

The Northern Great Plains Regional Incubator for Drought Resiliency (NGP RIDR) held its Phase I kickoff meeting on January 21–22, 2026 at the University of Montana in Missoula, bringing together the full leadership team and solution leads for the first time.

The two-day gathering focused on building shared understanding of the program’s scope and expectations, surfacing the most pressing challenges in drought assessment across the region, and aligning the team around NGP RIDR’s five integrated solutions.

NSF Context and Expectations

The meeting opened with a framing of what the NSF R2I2 program actually funds — and what it doesn’t. NGP RIDR is not a traditional research project. Phase I is about planning, coordination, governance, and readiness, not deploying tools. Success in Phase I is defined by the quality of the co-produced drought assessment plan and the strength of the Phase II implementation proposal.

“This is a rare opportunity to move beyond diagnosing problems and build a durable regional system that can guide national practice,” said Director Kelsey Jencso. “Phase I is about getting it right before scaling.”

Grand Challenges in Drought Assessment

The first day included a collaborative exercise to surface the most pressing challenges in drought hazard assessment across the Northern Great Plains. Participants — representing state agencies, federal programs, Tribal nations, universities, and the private sector — documented challenges on note cards, which were clustered into common themes.

Recurring concerns included:

  • Proxy indices that miss flash drought. Current assessments rely heavily on precipitation-based indices that can fail to capture the rapid onset and sector-specific impacts of flash drought events like those seen in 2017.
  • Non-stationarity. Reference periods and historical baselines built on 20th-century climate patterns are increasingly misaligned with current conditions.
  • Inconsistency and its consequences. Different states, agencies, and programs use different indicators and reference periods. The resulting inconsistencies have triggered economic inequities — determining who qualifies for USDA programs, insurance payouts, and emergency declarations.
  • Fragmented coordination. No regional governance structure exists for drought assessment. Each drought event reveals the same coordination failures documented in the last one.

Five Integrated Solutions

The afternoon of Day 1 connected those grand challenges to NGP RIDR’s five proposed solutions. Discussion refined the solutions and strengthened the logic connecting them:

  1. Regional Drought Assessment Framework — building shared governance and a unified, multi-state assessment plan
  2. Next-Generation Total Water Balance Monitoring — shifting from proxy indices to knowledge-guided machine learning applied to mesonet and soil moisture data
  3. Co-Produced Regional Drought Data Services — open, authoritative dashboards built with and for multiple audiences
  4. Risk, Adaptation, and Non-Stationarity — aligning drought science with insurance and USDA program frameworks
  5. Tribal and Rural Drought Workforce Development — ensuring tribal data sovereignty and building lasting monitoring capacity in tribal communities

Commercialization Pathways

Day 2 included a presentation by Zia Maumenee, Director of the NSF Engine project FARTHER, on moving university research into real-world impact through the emerging FARTHER Ventures studio. Participants identified strong alignment between the R2I2 incubator and a potential venture pipeline focused on disaster resilience applications — water, wildfire, risk modeling, and insurance.

Phase I Coordination Plan

The meeting concluded with a detailed coordination plan. Solution leads are now responsible for convening stakeholders, facilitating listening sessions at relevant existing forums, and synthesizing input over the coming year. Monthly leadership team meetings will maintain alignment across all five solution areas.

Key upcoming engagements include the NCSMN Soil Moisture Forum (June), AASC Annual Meeting (June), and FALCON Workshop (November). An in-person leadership synthesis meeting is planned for January 2027, with proposal development to follow through September 2027.