Request for Pre-proposals for 2024-2025 Research Funding (Mississippi and Alabama)

The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC) is pleased to announce a request for pre-proposals for 2024-2025 research funding.

Donor Name: Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium

State: Alabama and Mississippi

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 02/17/2023

Size of the Grant: $100,000

Grant Duration: 2 year

Details:

MASGC will be funding one- or two-year research projects for 2024-2025 to address coastal issues in Alabama and Mississippi through translational and innovative research. MASGC invites research pre-proposals that are highly integrated, multidisciplinary and address one or more of the priorities identified in this request.

Focus Areas

In this competition, MASGC welcomes projects in the following focus areas:

  • Healthy Coastal Ecosystems
  • Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture
  • Resilient Communities and Economies
  • Environmental Literacy and Workforce Development

Funding Information

MASGC anticipates $500,000 per year in federal and state funding for this competition. The funding level for an individual project shall not exceed $100,000 per year of federal support, including all facilities and administrative costs (F&A). Co-PIs not located in Alabama or Mississippi shall not receive more than 15% of the total budget. One-year projects and projects requesting lower annual amounts of funding will also be considered. A 50-percent non-federal match of the federal funds is required.

Funding Priorities

  • Focus Area: Healthy Coastal Ecosystems
    • Using existing datasets, calculate the value of ecosystem services provided by coastal restoration projects that have been implemented in Alabama and Mississippi within the last five years.
    • Develop next generation technologies to assess the living and non-living coastal and marine resources (e.g. autonomous systems, sensors, underwater acoustic systems).
  • Focus Area: Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture
    • Assess the marine aquaculture concerns of the traditional working waterfront industries (wild harvesters, processors, wholesalers and retailers) and environmental organizations leading to strategies to increase sustainable seafood production without harming the traditional fisheries industries.
    • Conduct an economic analysis of the costs and benefits of emerging marine finfish aquaculture opportunities and assess potential user conflicts in coastal Alabama and Mississippi.
  • Focus Area: Resilient Communities and Economies
    • Determine the options and costs associated with mitigating climate change impacts on communities and evaluate how communities incorporate the options into local plans or ordinances.
    • Identify the capacity of current drinking water distribution and sewer systems in terms of number of homes serviced and predict how demand and distributions of services may change with coastal development.
  • Focus Area: Environmental Literacy and Workforce Development
    • Assess methods to increase speed and efficacy of coastal research discovery to application.
    • Conduct an analysis of the coastal workforce including what type of water dependent jobs are emerging and training that is needed in the five coastal counties of Alabama and Mississippi

Eligibility Criteria

  • Principal Investigators (PIs) affiliated with an academic institution of higher education in Alabama or Mississippi are eligible to submit pre-proposals. Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs) may be from academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, commercial organizations and/or tribal, state or local governments. Only PIs who submit pre-proposal(s) are eligible to submit full proposals. Investigators that do not receive a positive review of their pre-proposal remain eligible for submission of the full proposal.
  • MASGC encourages applicants of all ages, races, ethnicities, national origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, disabilities, cultures, religions, citizenship types, marital statuses, education levels, job classifications, veteran status types and income and socioeconomic status types to apply for this competitive research opportunity.

For more information, visit MASGC.