Funding

Deadline for Letter of Intent (Required): November 30, 2023. Full Proposals due: February 13, 2024. Sea Grant and the NOAA Climate Program Office, with support from the NOAA Office for Coastal Management, seek to establish programs aimed at placing people across the country into good jobs that advance climate resilience and assisting employers in developing a 21st century workforce that is climate literate, informed by climate resilience, and skilled at addressing consequent challenges. NOAA will assist communities in coastal and Great Lakes states and territories so they may form partnerships that train workers and place them into jobs that enhance climate resilience. NOAA envisions making between 10-20 awards under this competition, at amounts ranging from $500,000-$10 million each. NOAA expects projects to range in duration from 24 months to 48 months, beginning no earlier than August 1, 2024. Resources from NOAA’s Climate Program Office, Office for Coastal Management, and National Sea Grant Office and its partners will be available to provide technical assistance to applicants and recipients to support these innovative efforts.

This popular internal funding program is designed to stimulate efforts within NOAA to preserve, protect and promote the agency's heritage assets. Projects from FY05 through FY12 have varied in scope from interpreting historic and cultural resources in NOAA's care to capturing oral histories of NOAA employees and constituents. Must be partnered with a NOAA partner.

Most recent deadline was September 30, 2022. The principal objective of this solicitation is to support $10 million of opportunities for underserved communities, tribes, and/or tribal entities to meaningfully engage in coastal habitat restoration activities. Through this funding opportunity, NOAA intends to support capacity building and restoration project activities that have the greatest potential to lead to habitat restoration that enhances resilience of underserved communities in marine, estuarine, coastal, and Great Lakes areas. Learn more and apply here.

Deadline Passed 12/08/2017. Deadline for 2018 Unknown.NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration & Research (OER) seeks to enhance ocean exploration and scientific knowledge of the unknown or poorly known areas of the ocean. This entails identifying, describing and creating baseline characterizations of new ocean habitats, marine resources and/or processes. In this Announcement, OER is seeking proposals focused on three topics including: 1. Exploration of the deep marine environments in the US EEZ and US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the Gulf of Mexico; 2. Discovery and exploration of prehistorically and historically significant submerged marine heritage sites in the Gulf of Mexico within the US EEZ and the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS); and 3. Novel or innovative technologies and methodologies that could increase the pace and scope of ocean exploration, especially exploration of deep environments including the water column and archaeological sites.

Deadline Passed 12/03/2018. Deadline Unknown for 2019. The purpose of this document is to advise the public that NOAA is soliciting applications to administer a 5-year, applied research program that supports collaborative research in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). This funding opportunity will provide support for the grantee to develop and administer a comprehensive national program that funds extramural collaborative science projects to address the system-wide research and management needs of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, while being responsive to local and regional reserve priorities and those of NOAA. 

Past deadline: May 15, 2019. The notice requests proposals for special projects and programs associated with NOAA's strategic plan and mission goals. There are four mission goals described in the Broad Agency Announcement including Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Weather-Ready Nations, Healthy Oceans, and Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies. This broad agency announcement is a mechanism to encourage research, education and outreach, innovative projects, or sponsorships that are not addressed through NOAA competitive discretionary programs. It is not a mechanism for awarding congressionally directed funds.

Deadline passed as of November 9th, 2018. Deadline for 2019 unknown. NOAA has developed the Coastal Ecosystem Resiliency Grants Program to build resilience of coastal ecosystems, communities and economies in the U.S. The Coastal Ecosystem Resiliency awards will fund projects that develop healthy and sustainable coastal ecosystems through habitat restoration and conservation.

Deadline Passed as of 3/2/2018. Deadline for 2019 Unknown. As part of the NAI, this competition is designed to foster the expansion of a sustainable U.S. ocean, coastal and Great Lakes aquaculture sector by addressing one or more of the following priorities: (a) supporting the development of emerging systems or technologies that will advance aquaculture in the U.S., including projects that will help stimulate aquaculture production by nascent industries; (b) developing and implementing actionable methods of communicating accurate, science based messages and information about the benefits and risks of U.S. marine and Great Lakes aquaculture to the public; and (c) increasing the resiliency of aquaculture systems to natural hazards and changing conditions. Successful applications must describe projects that clearly address major constraints, barriers or hurdles limiting aquaculture production in the U.S.

Most recent deadline passed. NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary office) is seeking proposals under the Pacific Northwest B-WET Program. The Pacific Northwest B-WET Program is a competitive, environmental education, grants program that promotes locally relevant, experiential learning in the K-12 environment. Funded projects provide Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs) for students, related professional development for teachers, and help to support regional education and environmental priorities in the Pacific Northwest. This Federal funding opportunity meets NOAA's Vision of healthy ecosystems, helping to ensure that ocean, estuarine, and related ecosystems and the species that inhabit them are vibrant and sustainable in the face of challenges.

The purpose of this document is to advise the public that NOAA/OAR/Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) is soliciting proposals for collaborative projects of up to 3 years in duration that synthesize ocean acidification information at a regional scale (e.g. Large Marine Ecosystem, large estuary or collection of small estuaries, and state or collection of states in US waters) to determine where societal vulnerabilities to ocean acidification exist or are emerging, in order to provide actionable information for marine resource decision makers and/or bolster the resilience of the nation's Blue Economy. This funding opportunity will not support the collection of new chemical or ecological observations or species response data.

Full application due: February 13, 2024. The NOAA Climate Resilience Regional Challenge (Challenge) will support collaborative approaches to achieving resilience in coastal regions with an emphasis on risk reduction, regional collaboration, equity, and building enduring capacity. The Challenge is a $575 million competition with a Letter of Intent phase and two exclusive funding tracks designed to meet the needs of coastal communities wherever they are in the resilience and adaptation process. Regional Collaborative Building and Strategy Development (Track One) supports building capacity for, development of, and collaboration on transformational resilience and adaptation strategies for coastal communities. Successful applicants will receive $500,000 to $2,000,000 to support regional scale coordination, engagement, planning, advancement of equitable outcomes, and capacity building for resilience and adaptation. Total funding for all Track One awards may be up to $25 million. Implementation of Resilience and Adaptation Actions (Track Two) supports implementation of transformational resilience and adaptation strategies and associated actions for coastal communities anchored in previous planning efforts. Applicants must propose a suite of complementary adaptation actions that together build the resilience of multiple communities within a coastal region, including those that have been marginalized, underserved, or underrepresented. Applicants can apply for not less than $15,000,000 and not more than $75,000,000, with most awards being between $25,000,000 and $50,000,000. Total funding available for all Track Two awards is up to $550,000,000.

Deadline passed. Most recent deadline: 05/24/2021. The NOAA Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Program (CAMP) supports research, programs, projects and other activities related to NOAA’s mission, primarily through collaborations among scientists and professionals in areas of mutual interest across the full spectrum of NOAA climate sciences. This cooperative agreement will focus on the following four priority areas: 1) Improved scientific understanding of the changing climate system and its impacts; 2) Scientific assessments of current and future states of the climate system that identify potential impacts and inform science, service, and stewardship decisions; 3) Mitigation and adaptation efforts supported by sustained, reliable, and timely climate services; 4) A climate-literate public that understands its vulnerabilities to a changing climate and makes informed decisions. Eligible applicants must be academic institutions of higher learning which offer doctoral degrees in NOAA-related sciences; consortia of academic institutions of higher learning which offer doctoral degrees in NOAA-related sciences; or non-profit research institutions. Multi-institution applications will not be accepted.

Letters of Intent (encouraged) deadline: September 15, 2023. Full applications due: February 23, 2024. Up to $50K support is available for ocean acidification education and outreach focused on underserved and/or Indigenous communities or Tribes. Priority goals include engaging diverse audiences in ocean acidification education and outreach, matching ocean acidification communication needs with existing research, education and outreach activities, while developing innovative approaches for community involvement.

Deadline: November 17, 2023. $240 million in funding is available for habitat restoration and coastal resilience through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Projects selected through this funding opportunity will have a transformative impact for coastal communities and tribes across the country. They will help sustain our nation’s fisheries, make significant strides in the recovery of threatened and endangered species, and help protect coastal communities and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change. They will support efforts such as reconnecting rivers to their historic floodplains, outplanting corals to rebuild reefs, building living shorelines that protect coasts from erosion and sea level rise, and more. Learn more and apply here.