Hi, everyone.
Thank you for joining the webinar today.
Today, we'll be talking about our fiscal year 2023 NOAA Ocean Exploration Funding Opportunity.
The webinar for today will be recorded, and the audience will remain muted throughout
the webinar.
We welcome you to ask questions in the question tab, and we will answer them live during the
question and answer session at the end.
For more information about our funding opportunity this year, please visit our website at oceanexplorer.NOAA.gov.
We have details about this website in the chat on the goto webinar panel.
We have also linked to the Ocean Exploration Fiscal Year 2023 Notice of Funding Opportunity
within the handouts for this Webinar.
We welcome you to download it, and you can also find it on our website, and on grants.gov.
My name is Adrienne Copeland and I'm the Program Manager for this Funding Opportunity.
And I have two people behind the scenes today, helping to make this webinar possible.
Chrissy Ortiz is the Administrative Specialist for our grants program with NOAA Ocean Exploration,
and at the end of this webinar, during the question and answer period, she will be reading
your questions aloud for me to answer.
We also have Ashley Marranzino, a benthic biologist for our office.
She will be working to answer your questions as text within the question tab of the goto
webinar panel.
During the webinar today, we will give you an introduction to NOAA Ocean Exploration.
We will discuss our fiscal year 2023 Ocean Exploration Funding Opportunity.
Discuss the proposal requirements for this year's opportunity, as well as some proposal
tips.
Along the bottom of each of the slides, you'll see a running tab that will orient you with
this agenda.
So by leading the national efforts to explore our ocean and making ocean exploration more
accessible, NOAA Ocean Exploration is filling gaps in our basic understanding of the U.S.
deep waters and the seafloor.
Providing critical deep ocean data, information, and awareness, needed to sustain and accelerate
the economy, health, and security of our nation.
NOAA Ocean Exploration priorities are to explore the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.
We focus on areas that are unexplored or under-explored within the U.S. EEZ and in water 200 meters
and deeper, except when it comes to our maritime heritage priorities, which can happen in shallower
waters.
Our main goal of our office is to make the data publicly accessible as soon as possible.
Our priorities are informed by the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring and Characterizing
the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.
This National Strategy, or NOMEC, defines ocean exploration as providing a multidisciplinary
first look at an unknown or poorly understood area of the seafloor, sub-bottom, and/or water
column.
An initial assessment of an area's physical, chemical and biological characteristics.
You can see on the right here a schematic of that site exploration, it includes the
water column, seafloor, and sub-seafloor, and looks at both the biology as well as the
environment in that area.
NOAA Ocean Exploration explores using a variety of different mechanisms.
We have the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer imaged here at the top left, as well as the remotely
operated vehicle Deep Discoverer, which you can see at the top right.
Deep Discoverer can sample up to 6000 meters below the surface.
And we also have other mechanisms, including the NOAA Broad Agency Announcement, cooperative
agreements, contracts, cross agency partnerships, as well as the annual funding opportunity,
which I'm discussing today.
As mentioned before, NOAA Ocean Exploration priorities are to explore unexplored or underexplored
areas within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.
This is a map of the U.S. EEZ boundaries that are highlighted by the yellow line.
Within the boundaries, you can see the unmapped areas highlighted in red and pink.
Light pink are the areas that are 200 meters and greater that are currently unmapped as
of August, 2021.
This map is included within our Frequently Asked Questions document on our website, and
a GIS layer of this map are also provided, so you can download it and see where these
areas are located.
For our fiscal year 2023 opportunity, it is open to U.S.
based institutions of higher education; non-profit organizations; U.S., territories, state, local,
and tribal governments, and federal agencies that possess the statutory authority to accept
funding for this type of work; as well as for-profit institutions.
Federal PIs and coPIs should consult the NOPP requirements for this opportunity, which can
be found within the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
The NOPP requirements include substantial participation
of one or more federal agencies in addition to NOAA, and participation of at least one
partner from academic, public, and/or private entities; this can include philanthropic organizations.
For this year's opportunity, it's focused in waters under U.S. jurisdiction.
We anticipate approximately three million available to fund 4 to 10 awards.
These awards can be for 1 to 2 year projects.
And the funding request must range from 75,000 to 750,000.
Any proposals outside this range will be disqualified and not considered for funding.
This year’s themes include ocean exploration and discovery, maritime heritage, and technology.
I'm going to go into details on each of these themes.
For ocean exploration and discovery, it includes exploration of unknown or poorly known ocean
areas, processes, and resources in water deeper than 200 meters.
These priorities should reference the priorities listed within the National Strategy for Mapping,
Exploring, and Characterizing the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.
For this year, we have a focus as well on the exploration for, and discovery of, microorganisms,
sponges, corals, and other organisms in water deeper than 200 meters
that may have biopharmaceutical or biotechnological potential.
For these proposals, they should reference the NOAA ‘omics strategy, and a link to
this strategy, as well as the National Strategy can be found within our Notice of Funding
Opportunity.
For the maritime heritage theme, it is exploration and discovery of significant maritime heritage
resources that improve historical knowledge and informed decisions concerning preservation,
management, and potential seafloor use.
These can be conducted in any water depth.
And for this year, the focus is on data and products that would benefit other academic
and research management disciplines, and the use of autonomous or other innovative technologies.
So the technology theme is the application of new or novel use of existing ocean technologies,
or innovative methods that could increase the scope and efficiency of acquiring ocean
exploration data, and expanding availability and use.
For this year, it must be focused on the development and testing of innovative sensors and systems
that could increase the capabilities of autonomous or remotely operated seagoing systems.
For this year, the technology must be applicable to water depths greater than 200 meters, preferably
full ocean depths.
However, shallow water or lab based testing is acceptable.
The technology must address at least one of the defined ocean exploration variables, as
referenced in the “Exploration Variables Identified by NOAA Ocean Exploration” technical
memorandum, and at least one NOAA science and technology focus area.
The links to the technical memorandum and the technology focus areas can be found within
our Notice of Funding Opportunity.
A timeline for this year’s opportunity.
Our Notice of Funding Opportunity was published
March 25th.
Our deadline for pre-proposal is May 24th at 4:59 pm eastern time.
The pre-proposal is a requirement in order to submit a full proposal.
Our full proposal deadline is September 29th by 11:59 pm eastern time.
And we anticipate award notifications for our principal investigators by April 2023.
With a start date anticipated of September 2023.
I did want to highlight here the key deadlines for both the pre-proposal and the full proposal
and the time deadline for both of these.
Please make sure when submitting the pre-proposal and full proposals that you meet those time
deadlines.
Even if you're a minute or two after the deadline, we unfortunately cannot accept the pre-proposal
or the full proposal.
All requirements for applying to our funding opportunity can be found within our website
here (https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/about/funding-opps/welcome.html).
On our website, you'll find the Notice of Funding Opportunity, which includes the details
and checklists for this opportunity.
You'll find the cover sheet and instructions for how to complete this cover sheet, which
is a required document for both the pre-proposal and full proposal.
You'll find guidance on budget tables and data management plans, the NEPA questionnaire,
which is also a requirement for our full proposal.
And our Frequently Asked Questions document, which we update regularly.
We will be updating this document after the webinar today.
So I encourage you to check the frequently asked questions throughout the process.
The requirements for our pre-proposal.
So, in order to complete a pre-proposal, you must submit the Notice of Funding Opportunity
cover sheet in full, which is provided on our website, as well as the pre-proposal,
which is a maximum of two pages.
Like I said before, our pre-proposals are due May 24th by 4:59 pm eastern time, and
they must be submitted via email to the email address listed here.
Please give ample time for the emails to be received because, like I mentioned before,
if it is received after the 4:59 pm deadline, we unfortunately cannot accept it.
The email subject line should be the last name of the principal investigator and then
say ocean exploration pre-proposal.
The requirements for the full proposal, which are also listed within our Notice of Funding
Opportunity, include the funding opportunity cover sheet, which we asked you to update
based on any changes to the full proposal.
Again, this cover sheet is provided on our website.
We also ask for an executive summary, maximum of one page.
The project narrative, a maximum of 15 pages.
The data and information sharing plan, a maximum of two pages.
The outreach and education plan, maximum on one page, and the statement of diversity and
inclusion, maximum of one page.
You also have to include the previous significant results, a summary of the current funding
support for each principal investigator and co-principal investigator.
A curriculum vitae, maximum two pages per each principal investigator.
Budget justification and budget tables.
If applicable, the negotiated Indirect Cost Rate memo, and
the NEPA questionnaire with questions 1 to 19 answered.
And, again, the NEPA questionnaire can be found on our website.
And it's optional to provide any letters of support, which can include letters of shiptime
or other letters of support for the project.
It is also optional to include suggested reviewers.
For non-federal principal investigators, these following forms are required to be submitted.
And, as mentioned before, the full proposal is due September 29th at 11:59 pm eastern
time.
For the proposal, the individual documents are submitted through grants.gov, and for
federal principal investigators, you submit your full proposal via email, to the email
listed here.
The requirements for the full proposal format include: formatted to print on 8.5 by 11 paper
with one inch margins, and 12 point font.
PDF is the preferred format for this.
We ask that each principal investigator's last name should be typed in the bottom right
corner of each page.
And all digital files should be named with the applicant's last name, and a descriptor
indicating the file content.
Example, Jones Cover Sheet 2023.
Titles for the project must be no longer than 15 words and/or 100 characters.
So the review process for this year includes: first the pre-proposal review.
The pre-proposal review is a NOAA Ocean Exploration Internal Evaluation Panel.
Where they review the relevance of your proposal to NOAA and NOAA Ocean Exploration missions
and goals.
The science and technical merit of the pre-proposal and the qualifications and competencies of
the applicants, including past performance on NOAA Ocean Exploration awards.
Each pre-proposal will receive an encouraged or discouraged for submitting a full proposal.
PI that receive a discourage are still eligible to submit a full proposal.
For the full proposal, it will go through both a mail review and a panel review.
For the email review, you'll have a minimum of three reviewers per each proposal, and
for the panel review, there will also be a minimum of three reviewers.
So, each proposal will have at least six reviews, per proposal.
For the full proposal, the evaluation criterion
are detailed throughout the Notice of Funding Opportunity, and I encourage you to read that,
as that will be the basis for the evaluation.
The first component that the proposal will be reviewed on is the importance and relevance
and applicability of the proposed project to NOAA’s and NOAA Ocean Exploration’s
missions and goals.
This criterion assesses whether there is intrinsic value in the proposed project, and a relevance
to NOAA, federal, regional, state, tribal, and local activities.
For NOAA Ocean Exploration, the reviewers will evaluate the extent to which the proposed
project is germane to NOAA’s mission goals.
They will also evaluate the proposed project is exploration focused,
focused on potential for making discoveries, versus research focus, focused on increasing
knowledge concerning a particular topic.
And three, the anticipated results could have significant downstream impact.
The second review evaluation criterion, also worth 30%, is the science and technical merit.
This criterion assesses whether the approach is technically sound and/or innovative, if
the methods are appropriate, and whether there are clear project goals and objectives.
For NOAA Ocean Exploration, the reviewers will evaluate the extent to which the proposed
project, or the proposed approach, is scientifically
and technically feasible.
The proposed project is innovative.
The proposal includes clear goals and objectives, whether the methods are commensurate with
the goals and objectives, whether the project is interdisciplinary, and whether the plans
for documentation, archiving, and sharing of data, multimedia, and sample of collections
are adequately described.
The third evaluation criterion are the overall qualifications of the applicant, which is
worth 15% of the score.
This criterion assesses whether the applicant's possess the necessary education, experience,
training, facilities, and administrative resources to accomplish the project.
For NOAA Ocean Exploration, the reviewers will evaluate the qualifications of the applicants,
including if they have the proper expertise to accomplish the proposed project, and the
strength breadth and depth of any proposed project partnerships, including with federal
partners and how they conform to the National Oceanographic Partnership Program goals, which
are provided within the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
If the applicant has previously received NOAA Ocean Exploration funding, reviewers will
also evaluate their award performance.
The fourth evaluation criterion, which is worth also 15% is based on project costs.
The criterion assesses the proposed budget to determine if it is realistic and commensurate
with the proposed project needs and timeframe.
And the strength of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program partnerships for federal
applicants.
The final evaluation criteria worth 10% is the outreach and education and diversity inclusion
criterion.
This criterion assesses whether the proposed project provides a focused and effective education
and outreach strategy in line with NOAA’s mission to protect the nation's natural resources,
and if it will provide an opportunity to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups.
For NOAA Ocean Exploration, the reviewers will determine the extent to which the outreach
and education plan is innovative and likely to be effective.
Whether the proposed project will provide opportunities to broaden participation of
underrepresented groups, whether the proposed project will provide opportunities for early
career researchers and students, and whether the proposed project budget includes funding
to support the outreach and education plan that will target diverse future generations
of explorers.
So now I'm going to talk through some of the tips for this year's funding opportunity.
First, I encourage you all to please read the entire Notice of Funding Opportunity thoroughly.
We've included a handout of that within the goto webinar for today, but you can also find
the Notice of Funding Opportunity on our website.
Everything I'm mentioning today will be within that funding opportunity, so please make sure
to read it thoroughly, multiple times.
I also recommend that you read through the basis for our program priorities, which include
the NOAA science and technology priorities, as well as the NOMEC strategy and implementation
plan.
Make sure to fill in all applicable fields on the cover sheet thoroughly and accurately,
and make sure to include a cover sheet for both the pre-proposal and full proposal.
If a cover sheet is not included, we will unfortunately not be able to review that full
proposal or pre-proposal.
Make sure that the cover sheet and proposal match including numbers throughout both documents.
We also encourage that you look at the list of past grant funding recipients on our website,
provided here.
And it details projects that have been funded in the past, so you can get an idea of what
type of work we funded.
And I also encourage you all to reach out if you have any questions.
Again, our email is listed here.
So, from some tips for the data management plans, all data must be discoverable and accessible
to the public.
The data must be in archive ready, machine-readable, open-source, nonproprietary formats, and,
at a minimum, submitted to the National Centers for Environmental Information, if applicable.
The data must be free of charge, or at cost of reproduction.
The data must be submitted at the earliest of the publication of a manuscript, two years
from the time the data was collected, or two years from the end of the award period.
Some tips for the education and outreach and diversity and inclusion sections.
So, commitment to work with NOAA Ocean Exploration on web communication is necessary but not
enough.
Within the Notice of Funding Opportunity, diversity is defined as a collection of individual
attributes that together help organizations achieve objectives.
Inclusion is defined as a culture that connects each employee to the organization.
For this section, we encourage you to describe how the proposed activity broadens the participation
of underrepresented groups.
And some tips for the budget tables and justification section, make sure to provide as many details
as you have.
You need to include things like the basis for airfare, so cost comparisons, and per
diem estimates.
If you're requesting funding for two years, the narrative must be divided into year one
and year two sections.
And each section must be clearly identified as year one and year two.
And within the budget table, year one and year two need to be separated and include
information for each object class, and then total for each column.
And, again, I just encourage you to double check the cover sheet, executive summary,
budget narrative, and all forms to make sure that they are consistent.
And that's all we have for the webinar today, and I open it up for questions.
Adrienne, I think we have three questions so far.
So the first one is, are NOAA contractors eligible if they are not a non-profit?
Great question.
Yes, NOAA contractors are eligible to submit a full and pre-proposal.
And they would submit it via grants.gov, so they would need to make sure that their institution
has an account with SAM.
Thank you.
The next question is: Will there be any feedback from NOAA on the pre-proposal prior to the
full proposal deadline?
That's a great question.
Yes.
There will be feedback from NOAA on the pre-proposal prior to the full proposal deadline.
Within the Notice of Funding Opportunity, you'll see that you'll get feedback prior
to July 6th, on whether or not we encouraged or discouraged you to submit a full proposal.
You'll receive a letter with that from us that will indicate why we've discouraged or
encouraged your proposal.
But I welcome you, once you've received feedback, if you have any questions to reach out to
me either via email, which is listed here, or via my phone number, which is also listed
here.
Do we have our next question?
Yes.
Is this program separate from NOAA SBIR?
So you asked if this program is separate from the NOAA SBIR, which is a Small Business Innovative
Research Program.
Yes, it is.
So NOAA also has the Small Business Innovative Research Program, which I would encourage
folks that represent a small business to look for more information.
You can actually Google NOAA SBIR, and, and it will give you details about that program
and the requirements, and yes it is separate from this program.
Can a group submit more than one pre-proposal?
Yes, a group, and actually, the same PI, can submit more than one pre-proposal.
Typically, though, a principal investigator does not submit more than one full proposal,
but you are eligible to submit more than one pre-proposal.
OK, thank you.
Next question is with respect to microorganisms.
Is NOAA focused on prokaryotes or would eukaryotes be a potential appropriate study system?
Both would be appropriate.
So you could focus on prokaryotes or eukaryotes.
But I do want to highlight that, this year, we have a special emphasis, when it comes
to the microorganisms but that is technically not a requirement for the ocean exploration
and discovery theme.
But we do encourage applicants to submit with that in mind.
OK, and the next question is, what were the full proposal feedback, and expected start
dates again?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So, the full proposal deadline is September 29th by 11:59 pm eastern time, and that's
submitted either via grants.gov or via email if you are a federal principal investigator.
We anticipate, so it will go through peer review over the winter time, and we anticipate
letting principal investigators know by April 2023 whether or not their proposal was selected
for funding, and the anticipated start date is September 2023.
I do say all this, but we try really hard to get feedback and start dates sooner than
that.
This year, actually, for our fiscal year 2022, the start dates are actually July of 2022.
So, we're hoping come 2023, we'll have an earlier start date, as well, but we do have
our principal investigators plan for a start date in September of 2023.
Thank you.
Another question.
We'll work in the Great Lakes be considered in this program this year?
Yes.
Work in the Great Lakes can be considered this year.
The only requirement for our themes is for it to be in waters under U.S. jurisdiction.
And for the ocean exploration and discovery theme it must be in waters 200 meters and
deeper.
For maritime heritage, it can be in waters shallower than 200 meters.
And then for the technology theme again, the technology must be applicable to 200 meters
and deeper with a preference for full ocean depths.
But it can be tested in shallower waters, or lab based testing.
Geographically, we are pretty open this year, aside from the requirement to be in waters
under U.S. jurisdiction.
Thank you.
Next question: Does our budget affect our ability to be chosen?
That's a really good question, and it really depends on the peer review process.
Like I mentioned before, the full proposal will go through external review by experts,
and you'll have at least six reviewers, three that will be via email, and three will be
a panel of experts.
One of the evaluation criteria that the panelists will review comes down to project costs.
Like I mentioned, we have very specific things for them to look at when they look at your
project costs.
They're supposed to be reviewing things like whether the proposed budget is realistic and
whether it commensurate with the proposed project needs and timeframe.
So it really depends on if your budget is addressing those criterion, so it is, is it
realistic, is it commensurate and is it what would be needed to complete the project in
the timeframe?
Thank you, Adrienne.
I don't see any more questions at this time.
OK, I'll give it one more minute to see if anyone else has a question.
If not, though, and if you have a question after this webinar, I, again, encourage you
to please reach out via email.
My email is provided here.
You can also call me at the phone number listed here, again, that is 202-603-6844.
Okay, I don't think any other questions came in, so I just wanted to thank you all for
attending.
I hope you all enjoyed the webinar today.
Again, we will be providing a link to the recording of this webinar on our website,
oceanexplorer.NOAA.gov.
And I, again, encourage you to please check out our website for more information about
this funding opportunity, as well as the frequently asked questions, which we'll be updating throughout
the process, as well as the list of past awardees so you get an idea of the projects we've funded
in the past.
Again, thank you all for attending, and I hope you have a great rest of your week.