Empowering Forecasting Innovation Through EPIC Community Engagement and User Support

The Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) is dedicated to accelerating contributions to the Unified Forecast System (UFS) by engaging the community and providing community members with the necessary tools and knowledge to contribute innovations to our Nation’s forecasting and modeling systems. The EPIC Community Engagement (ECE) team supports EPIC's innovation through several initiatives, including community training events and the annual Unifying Innovations in Forecasting Capabilities Workshop (UIFCW). It also publishes and publicizes dynamic content on social media, the EPIC Community Portal (ECP), GitHub, and other platforms to meet the community’s evolving needs and to remove barriers to innovation. The User Support (US) team complements ECE’s efforts by updating UFS application documentation, compiling technical FAQs, and monitoring support requests. The US team provides ECE with immediate feedback on community engagement efforts, which allows ECE to adjust content and outreach strategies based on community needs and requests. This collaboration results in a responsive support environment that rapidly evolves to meet the community's needs, ensuring that users and developers have the support they require to innovate within our national forecasting systems.