DesignSafe-CI is the cyberinfrastructure and data repository for the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI), a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded network that supports research on the effects of earthquakes, windstorms, tsunamis, and storm surge on the built environment. Operated by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin, DesignSafe-CI is where civil, structural, geotechnical, and coastal engineering researchers store, curate, publish, and discover the experimental, simulation, and field-reconnaissance data that natural hazards engineering research produces.
For a research administrator or engineering PI working under an NSF award, DesignSafe-CI matters for a specific, practical reason: it is the field’s recognized domain repository, the kind of discipline-specific data repository that NSF’s public access and data management plan (DMP) expectations point researchers toward when a suitable one exists, rather than defaulting to a generalist option.
What NHERI Is, and Where DesignSafe-CI Sits Within It
NHERI is NSF’s distributed network of large-scale experimental facilities and shared cyberinfrastructure for natural hazards engineering research, funded through a set of cooperative agreements that began operating facilities in 2015-2016. The network’s experimental sites include shake tables, geotechnical centrifuges, wind and wave engineering facilities, and a rapid-reconnaissance research capability (RAPID), all coordinated through NHERI’s shared cyberinfrastructure component.
DesignSafe-CI is that cyberinfrastructure component. It is not a separate, optional add-on to NHERI’s physical facilities; it is the platform researchers across the network use to plan experiments, run simulations on shared computing resources, and — most relevant here — curate and publish the resulting data. Per its own documentation, DesignSafe provides three core capabilities: the Data Depot repository for data management, curation, and publication; a set of cloud-based Tools and Applications for simulation and analysis; and a Reconnaissance Portal for field-based hazard research data.
What Data Types DesignSafe-CI Hosts
DesignSafe-CI’s Data Depot is built around the kinds of data natural hazards engineering research actually produces, which span experimental, computational, and observational methods far more than most single-discipline repositories need to accommodate:
- Experimental data from large-scale physical testing — shake-table tests, geotechnical centrifuge experiments, wind-tunnel and wave-basin testing, and hybrid simulation (physical sub-structures tested in combination with numerically simulated components).
- Simulation data from computational modeling of structural, geotechnical, and coastal/hydrodynamic hazard response, including model inputs, outputs, and the associated code and workflow needed to reproduce a run.
- Field reconnaissance data collected by post-event teams documenting the performance of buildings, infrastructure, and geotechnical systems after real earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other hazard events — imagery, survey data, and structured damage assessments.
- Geospatial and survey data, measurement and sensor data, and research software associated with any of the above.
The repository’s subject scope, per its listing in the re3data registry of research data repositories, covers engineering sciences, construction engineering, geotechnics, and related social-science data connected to natural hazards research. The Data Depot has been operating since 2016 and also provides access to legacy datasets going back to roughly 2005, inherited from NSF’s earlier Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) program, which DesignSafe-CI effectively succeeded as NHERI’s cyberinfrastructure.
Curation, Publication, and Persistent Identifiers
Datasets deposited in the Data Depot go through a curation and publication process rather than simple file upload: researchers organize and describe a dataset, and on publication the Data Depot assigns a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), making the dataset citable and permanently locatable independent of where the underlying files happen to live. Published datasets carry licensing terms — the repository supports Creative Commons options (including CC and CC0) and Open Data Commons licenses — so depositors can specify exactly what reuse is permitted.
DesignSafe’s Data Depot Repository is CoreTrustSeal certified, meaning it has been independently assessed against CoreTrustSeal’s requirements for organizational infrastructure, digital object management, and technology — the same certification framework CASRAI’s guide to trustworthy repository certification covers in more depth. For a PI or data steward evaluating whether a named repository in a DMP will satisfy a funder’s expectation of a trustworthy, durable home for the data, that certification is a directly checkable answer, not a judgment call.
DesignSafe-CI and NSF Data-Sharing Compliance
NSF’s Public Access Plan and the DMP requirements built into most NSF proposal solicitations expect awardees to describe, in advance, where and how the data their project generates will be preserved and made accessible (see CASRAI’s guide to writing an NSF/NIH-compliant data management plan). NSF’s own guidance does not mandate a specific repository, but reviewers and program officers generally favor a repository that is (a) actively used and recognized within the relevant research community, and (b) capable of assigning a persistent identifier and sustaining access beyond the life of the award — both of which DesignSafe-CI satisfies for natural hazards and civil/structural engineering data specifically, in the same way that discipline repositories like Dryad do for ecology and evolutionary biology, or NOAA NCEI does for climate and ocean data.
In practice, this makes DesignSafe-CI the default answer to the “where will this data be archived” line of an NSF DMP for a project funded under NHERI itself, or for any other NSF-funded civil, structural, geotechnical, coastal, or wind engineering project whose data fits the repository’s scope even without a direct NHERI award. Naming a domain repository rather than a generalist one can also strengthen a DMP’s data-sharing narrative, since it signals the data will land somewhere already organized around, and discoverable by, the relevant research community — see CASRAI’s overview of the distinction between a domain repository and a generalist repository for how reviewers typically weigh that choice.
Who Can Use DesignSafe-CI, and What It Costs
DesignSafe-CI’s Data Depot is an open-access repository: publicly published datasets can be browsed and downloaded without an account. Depositing, curating, and publishing a new dataset requires a free DesignSafe account, and the platform’s cloud computing and analysis tools (used for simulation and large-scale data processing) are available to researchers through NHERI’s standard project-allocation process, the same general model TACC uses for its other national research computing resources. There is no per-dataset publication fee for depositing natural hazards engineering data that fits the repository’s scope — a meaningful difference from generalist repositories that may charge above a free storage tier.
DesignSafe-CI vs. Generalist Repositories
A civil or structural engineering researcher with NSF-funded natural hazards data is not required to use DesignSafe-CI — NSF’s public access requirements can be satisfied by any repository that meets the funder’s general criteria — but choosing it over a generalist option like Zenodo or Figshare has real advantages specific to this field:
- Domain-appropriate curation — Data Depot’s ingestion and metadata workflow is built around the file types, instrumentation metadata, and experimental parameters natural hazards engineering data actually needs described, rather than a generic schema.
- Discoverability within the community — data published through DesignSafe-CI is found by the researchers most likely to reuse it, because it sits alongside the rest of the field’s published datasets rather than being one record among millions of unrelated deposits.
- Continuity with NHERI’s experimental and computational tools — a dataset generated using NHERI facilities or DesignSafe’s own simulation tools can be published without exporting it to a different platform first.
The tradeoff is scope: DesignSafe-CI is not an appropriate home for data outside natural hazards and civil/structural/geotechnical/coastal engineering. A researcher whose data doesn’t fit that scope should use a generalist repository or a different domain repository instead — see CASRAI’s guide to choosing an open data repository for the general decision framework.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is DesignSafe-CI required for NSF-funded natural hazards engineering research?
No. NSF does not mandate a specific repository in its public access or data-sharing requirements. DesignSafe-CI is the field’s recognized domain repository and the practical default for data generated under NHERI awards or by natural hazards engineering research more broadly, but a researcher can name a different repository in their DMP as long as it meets the funder’s general expectations for access and preservation.
What is the difference between DesignSafe-CI and NHERI?
NHERI (Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure) is the overall NSF-funded network — the experimental facilities (shake tables, wind and wave facilities, geotechnical centrifuges, the RAPID reconnaissance facility) plus the shared cyberinfrastructure that supports them. DesignSafe-CI is that shared cyberinfrastructure component specifically: the platform for data curation, publication, computation, and reconnaissance data management.
Does publishing a dataset on DesignSafe-CI assign a DOI?
Yes. Datasets that go through the Data Depot’s curation and publication process are assigned a DOI, making them persistently citable independent of the file location.
What kinds of researchers use DesignSafe-CI?
Primarily civil, structural, geotechnical, coastal, and wind engineering researchers working on the impacts of earthquakes, hurricanes/windstorms, tsunamis, and storm surge on the built environment, along with the social-science researchers who study community and infrastructure resilience alongside them.
Is DesignSafe-CI free to use?
Depositing and publishing natural hazards engineering data in the Data Depot carries no per-dataset publication fee. Access to DesignSafe’s cloud computing and simulation tools is allocated through NHERI’s standard research-project allocation process rather than paid per use.
Is the Data Depot a certified trustworthy repository?
Yes. The DesignSafe Data Depot Repository holds CoreTrustSeal certification, an independent assessment of a repository’s organizational, technical, and digital-object-management practices — relevant when a DMP needs to demonstrate that a named repository meets a funder’s durability and trustworthiness expectations.
