Florida Sea Grant Home Statement of Interest Main Proposal and Funding Information Research Priorities Preparing Statement of Interest Submit Statement of Interest
     
 
 
A. Proposal and Funding Information 2012 - 2013
This is a solicitation for Statements of Interest proposing two-year coastal and marine related research projects. A strong Statement of Interest is the first step to secure Sea Grant funding, so please read this information carefully. Although brief, the Statement of Interest is the basis for deciding whether to request a full proposal. Preparation should be done thoughtfully.
1. Research Priority areas are: 1) Healthy Coastal and Marine Ecosystems, 2) Sustainable and Hazard-Resilient Coastal Communities, 3) Seafood Production and Safety, 4) Climate Change: Impacts and Adaptations. (Review the Priority Areas in Depth)

2. This is an open state-wide competition for faculty affiliated with Florida academic institutions. Faculty members of any Florida university or college, public or private, are eligible to apply. We also support private sector and NGO projects, and in that case, request that you collaborate with a faculty member at a Florida university, and that the proposal come from your co-PIs' university sponsored programs office.

3. Projects must be strong in scientific or professional merit, rationale and user relationships. Other criteria described below apply.

4. The maximum Florida Sea Grant award is $200,000 for two years, with no more than $100,000 in each individual budget year and 50% non-federal or in-kind match is required.
 

What Is a Statement of Interest?

The Statement of Interest is a project pre-proposal that identifies a topic relevant to coastal and ocean needs in Florida and the nation.  It describes the scope of the need, problem or opportunity, and how the results achieved under a grant would contribute to development, conservation, or use of marine resources. Statements of Interest allow for review of concepts, rationale, general approach and expected outcomes and impacts before faculty must commit extensive effort to writing a narrative of detailed methods, literature review, and other aspects of a full proposal.The five-page (maximum) Statement of Interest format and a one-page biographical data form (for each investigator listed) are described in section C. Preparing Statement of Interest. 

Download the Statement of Interest worksheet (MS Word document) and one-page Biographical Data worksheet (MS Word document). Completed Statements of Interest are limited in length of up to five 8 1/2 x 11 pages, single-spaced text, using standard, 12-point type size and 1-inch margins. (Note section on review criteria and strong/weak proposals below.) Return to Questions

The Florida Sea Grant Funding Cycle
Florida Sea Grant research projects are normally funded for two years. Thus, projects proposed should be for the period February 1, 2010 to January 31, 2012. Key dates are:

2011

 
January 5 Call for Statements of Interest released
February 18 Statements of Interest due
April 12-13 Statement of Interest Review Panel meets
April 18-22 Faculty notified if Statement of Interest is selected
April 22-May 27 Invited full proposals written
June 3 Full proposals due
June - August Peer review of research proposals conducted
August 9 Technical Review Panel meets for full proposal review
August 12 Faculty notified if proposal is successful (Note: No additional review will be conducted at the national level, and faculty will know if their proposal is accepted.)
September 2 Rebuttal letter to peer reviews due
October 1 Omnibus Florida Sea Grant Proposal submitted to National Sea Grant Office, NOAA
2012  
February 1 New projects start 
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Who Can Apply?
Faculty at Florida institutions of higher education or non-agency, non-profit marine research laboratories may apply. Investigators "new" to Sea Grant funding are encouraged to apply. In fact, a goal of program management is to have turnover of faculty. Funded projects are selected based on merit. This means that faculty turnover is accomplished based on new (not funded in previous cycle) faculty submitting highly competitive proposals. Please note that extramural co-sponsors (e.g., agencies, industry) usually are involved in the most competitive proposals.
Faculty may participate in a maximum of two Statements of Interest (being listed as either Principal Investigator or Associate Investigator counts as participation).
For 2010-2011 Florida Sea Grant received 98 Statements of Interest and invited 25 full proposals for review. Of the full proposals received, 8 were funded. The desired outcome in this new call for proposals is to fund at least 30% of investigators who are invited to write full proposals. Return to Questions
 
Size of Grant Awards
The maximum two-year award that Florida Sea Grant will provide is $200,000, with a maximum of $100,000 in each budget year. For each Sea Grant dollar, a 50% matching fund commitment is required (i.e., every two federal dollars must be matched by one dollar from non-federal sources).

For 2012 and 2013, the anticipated amount (assuming the current federal appropriation) of annual research funding available will be approximately $700,000. At the $100,000 level, this would fund 7 research projects, including one regional Gulf of Mexico project (see below). Occasionally, projects that receive high scores but fall just below the cutoff for full funding can be supported at a reduced scope and cost with Program Development funds. Return to Questions
       

Regional Gulf of Mexico Projects
The four Sea Grant programs around the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) are requesting regional research proposals for 2012-2013 that focus on valuation of ecosystem services. The total available federal dollars for those projects is expected to be $1.2 million over the two year funding cycle, with the amount of funds for an individual project and the total number of funded projects to be determined. Complete details on GOM research priorities and proposal submission guidelines may be found at http://www.flseagrant.org/funding/GOM/index.htm. Please note that the submission process is different than for the Florida Sea Grant core program Statements of Interest defined in other sections of this RFP.

Student Involvement Is Essential
 Sea Grant is a program with its base in the academic sector. Thus, student participation in Sea Grant funded research is essential. Florida Sea Grant's goal is to ensure that 25% of its research funding supports students (and their associated costs) who are working within a project. As noted, we will not review statements that do not provide support for at least one student.


Review Criteria
To be considered in this review process, ALL of the following criteria must be met. Statements of interest that do not meet ALL of these criteria will be returned without a review and will not be considered in this biennial research competition.

  1. All required materials, identified below, must be submitted to the online system by 4 PM on February 18, 2011.

  2. The statement must clearly indicate that the PI has worked with an end-user in order to develop a proposal that is relevant to a focus area and priority identified in section B of this RFP. Professional colleagues are not end-users. An end-user is an industry or agency that makes use of a research product to address some coastal or marine issue. It is recognized that projects funded by Florida Sea Grant may be just one step in realizing that final product.

  3. The PI must have documented expertise in the specific area of proposed research, as evidenced by peer-reviewed journal articles in the subject area of the research proposal.

  4. The project must include funding for at least one student, and that student must be actively contributing to the project as part of his or her MS Thesis, PhD Dissertation, or undergraduate academic program.

  5. The proposed research must address one or more of the priorities identified in section B of the RFP.

Statements that meet these criteria will be sent out for review.

Peer review is the responsibility of the Florida Sea Grant Program (Director). Oversight of the peer review process is the responsibility of the National Sea Grant Office (Program Monitor). For Statements of Interest, Florida Sea Grant will obtain relevancy reviews from agency and industry stakeholders, reviews from subject area experts, and reviews from a visiting panel of broadly experienced out-of-state scientists recognized for both their disciplinary and program leadership experience. They will consider email reviews and their own reviews in recommending which Statements of Interest will be selected for development into a full proposal.

Statements of Interest must focus on the priorities indentified in Section B item 4 of this document or they will be not be reviewed. Five criteria will be used by reviewers and panel members to evaluate Statements of Interest that have passed the initial screening described above:

  1. Scientific or Professional Merit (30%) -- the degree to which the proposed project is innovative and will advance the state of the science or discipline through rigorous state-of-the-art research.

  2. Rationale (10%) -- the degree to which the proposed activity addresses a priority issue (or issues) identified in Section B below. Projects that ultimately contribute to economic and/or environmental sustainability fare best.

  3. Users, Participants and Co-Sponsors (20%) -- the degree to which users or potential users of the results of the proposed project have been brought into the planning and funding of the project, will be brought into the execution of the project, or will use results. Researchers must work with end-users in developing relevant proposals.

  4. Expected Results, Applications and Benefits (30%) -- the degree to which the completed project is expected to create new commercial opportunities, improve technological and economic efficiency, promote environmental sustainability, or improve management decisions, in Florida or possibly nationally.

  5. Investigator Qualifications (10%) -- the degree to which investigators are qualified by education, training, and/or experience to execute the proposed activity consistent with stage of career development; record of achievement with previous funding.

The outcome of this scoring will serve as the primary basis for advancing to the full proposal stage. However, the Director also will consider criteria including prior performance of the PI on Florida Sea Grant funded research projects and the goal of distributing research funds across many Florida academic institutions in reaching a final decision.
Return to Questions  

Strong Statements/Weak Statements
Strong Statements:
Project idea builds on FSG strategic priorities, clearly documents the issue, accurately states how the proposed work will help prevent or solve a problem, and explicitly lays out the steps needed to produce such valuable outcomes
Strong scientific merit is apparent
Imaginative, creative, advances scholarship
State and national impact
Testable hypotheses or methods to rigorously evaluate efficacy of new tool, technology, policy or product are clearly articulated
Objectives are measurable, realistic in number
Methods clearly explained with evidence of likely success (e.g., pilot data), recognition of likely problems, and plans to address potential problems
Outputs and potential impacts are clearly defined
Involvement of end-users clearly defined and documented
Realistic timeframe and budget
Matching funds or in-kind services from outside cooperator already committed or pending
May be part of a package of inter-related projects, possibly regional in scope
PI has coordinated development of the project with a Sea Grant marine agent, a resource management agency or the private sector

Weak Statements:
PI sends in ill-conceived last-minute idea
Idea may be better suited to another sponsor (weak link to FSG research priorities)
Rationale is merely indicative (lacks data and clear evaluation of further work needed to produce outcomes)
Poor technical design
Florida impacts are not clear
Objectives are merely a statement of methods
Methods to collect, analyze and interpret data are not explicitly stated and assumptions and likely problems are not clearly addressed
Vague identification of end-users of research results
Geographic/subject focus too narrow, limited
Too ambitious, unfocused
No identification of role of outside cooperators
Isolated from related efforts
Exceeds space limitation
Biographical information incomplete, not up-to-date Return to Questions
   
About Florida Sea Grant


Florida Sea Grant is part of the National Sea Grant College Program (NSGCP). The mission of Florida Sea Grant is to provide integrated research, education, communications and extension to enhance the responsible use and conservation of coastal and marine resources to create a sustainable economy and environment. The NSGCP is authorized by federal legislation and is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce. Florida receives its federal funds from the NSGCP. Florida Sea Grant is one of 32 such programs in the nation, and it is hosted by the University of Florida. Florida Sea Grant functions as a partnership of universities, marine industries, citizens and government.  The research skills of university scientists from all disciplines related to ocean and coastal topics are combined with a strong commitment to make research findings available to a wide audience through a network of extension and education specialists. Florida Sea Grant conducts its work principally through (1) research grants to faculty at Florida academic institutions or non-profit marine research laboratories, (2) full-time Sea Grant extension professionals, and (3) a central communications and management staff.

The Core Program

The core biennial award from NOAA supports Florida Sea Grant research, extension/outreach, education, communications and program development and management. It is subject to annual Congressional appropriations and continuing quality of program performance. Beyond that, additional appropriations may be designated by the NSGCP for special competitions nationally. Interested faculty members are urged to apply for NSGCP special competitions as a means of supplementing the biennial core budget. Check the Florida Sea Grant website for details.

 
 
 
Florida Sea Grant Home Statement of Interest Main Proposal and Funding Information Research Priorities Preparing Statement of Interest Submit Statement of Interest