Opportunity is Closed.

Florida Sea Grant is now seeking letters of intent for two-year coastal and ocean applied research grants that reflect priorities identified in the current Florida Sea Grant Strategic Plan. A letter of intent is the first step to secure Florida Sea Grant funding and must be submitted to the Florida Sea Grant office electronically by 3 p.m. EST on February 14, 2019 to be considered.

For this funding cycle, Florida Sea Grant is particularly interested in applied research projects that reflect the following priorities:

Healthy Coastal Environments

• Acquire new actionable information about how altered freshwater flow affects estuaries and their ecosystem services.
• Develop and test innovative new approaches for restoring coastal habitat, especially approaches that increase habitat resilience to storms and sea-level rise.

Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture

• Develop new models, tools and technologies for sustainably managing fisheries resources or more effectively protecting at-risk species.
• Develop new tools, technologies, methods and approaches to support cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally-friendly aquaculture and the harvest, processing and sale of wild aquatic products.
• Develop an unbiased, efficient and effective approach that could be used on a recurring basis by resource management agencies to estimate the full economic value of commercial vs. recreational marine fisheries in a particular region.

Resilient Communities and Economies

• Quantify the socio-economic impacts resulting from Florida cyanobacteria blooms. We are particularly interested in how the workforce in water-dependent communities around the St Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries are affected by these events.
• Estimate the future impacts that sea level rise could have on nutrient export from septic tanks into estuaries and other coastal ecosystems.
• Quantify the efficacy of new and existing approaches for increasing the resilience of coastal communities to extreme weather, storm surge and sea level rise.

Cross-Cutting

• Develop new tools or methods that will more rapidly detect harmful organisms or materials in water or seafood products, or that will allow for rapid identification or authentication of species or origin of products. Past examples have included a rapid test for brevetoxin in coastal waters, DNA fingerprinting of illegally harvested shark fins, and a rapid test to determine if seafood is properly labelled.

A technical review panel will choose approximately 20 letters of intent to be developed into full proposals and notify the principal investigators by April 19, 2019.

The maximum Florida Sea Grant award is $200,000 for two years, with no more than $100,000 in each individual budget year. A 50 percent match is required – for example, a $100,000 match of non-federal funds if $200,000 of federal funds is requested.

For more information, visit: 2020-2022 Call for Letters of Intent

For any additional questions, contact Karl Havens, Florida Sea Grant Director at khavens@ufl.edu