National Sea Grant Office Announces FY2024 Sea Grant Contaminants of Emerging Concern Competition

March 9th, 2024

The National Sea Grant Office has announced the opening of the FY2024 Sea Grant Contaminants of Emerging Concern competition.

NOAA’s National Sea Grant Office anticipates approximately $1,000,000 of federal funds will be available to individual Sea Grant programs to support 1-5 projects that address Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) across a shared geography, biogeography or watershed. Each application may request between $200,000 and $600,000 in federal funds per project and may be for up to three years.

Eligible Applicants

Sea Grant College Programs, Sea Grant Institutional Programs, and Sea Grant Coherent Area Programs are eligible to submit to this opportunity. Applications require the standard 50% non-federal match for Sea Grant projects. This will be a stand-alone (i.e., non-omnibus) award. All projects must take place within the United States or territories or their respective waterways.

Applicants are encouraged to pursue diverse partnerships, including with state agencies and academic institutions, to develop projects that research and monitor CECs that may cause ecological or human health impacts, including PFAS, in coastal and estuarine waters. Projects may include direct or competed research and appropriate associated supporting costs and activities (e.g., administration, extension, research/project synthesis) and could include efforts that:

  • Focus on species of ecological importance, particularly those with strong socio-economic and/or human health dimensions (e.g., subsistence, recreational, or commercial shellfish and/or finfish);

  • Focus on the prevalence, transportation, and biogeochemical transformations of CECs across a watershed or ecosystem, especially those with pathways that involve drinking water and/or wastewater;

  • Consider the in-situ multi-stressor and/or interactive effects of CECs that organisms likely experience in their natural environments; and/or

  • Perform short-term monitoring assessments to help steer more focused, long-term monitoring initiatives.

Please carefully review the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) NOAA-OAR-SG-2024-25936 for specific instructions on how to apply for the competition via grants.gov.

Due Date

Applications must be submitted to Grants.gov by May 2, 2024.

If you have questions please contact Dr. Peter Rowe or [email protected] and specify that your question is related to FY24 Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the subject line.