Hi, everyone, Thank you for joining the webinar for today.
We're gonna get started shortly.
OK, thank you, everyone, for joining.
Today, we're going to be talking about our fiscal year 2022 NOAA Ocean Exploration Funding
Opportunity.
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.
Dr. Jen Le is a Benthic Biologist, with NOAA Ocean Exploration.
And she will be reading your questions for me aloud at the end of this webinar.
Then Dr. Lu Wang is our 2021 Knauss Fellow with NOAA Ocean Exploration.
She will be working with us to answer your questions within the question tab of you guys’
GoToWebinar Panel.
So the webinar for today will be recorded and the audience will remain muted throughout
the webinar.
We welcome you to ask questions in the chat tab throughout the webinar and we will answer
them during the question and answer session at the end of this webinar.
We also have Anna Lienesch on board who's our partner with the NOAA National Centers
for Environmental Information.
And she will be on later during the question and answer session, as well, if you guys have
any questions about anything to do with data for our proposals.
So during the webinar today, we will give you an introduction to the NOAA Ocean Exploration
Program.
Here we're talking about our fiscal year 22 Ocean Exploration Funding Opportunity, discussing
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 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 underexplored within the U.S. EEZ and in waters 200 meters
and deeper except when it comes to our cultural heritage priorities which can happen in shallower
waters.
And the main goal of our office is to make the data publicly available as soon as possible.
Our priorities are influenced 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 multi-disciplinary
first look, at an unknown or poorly understood area of the seafloor, sub bottom, and our
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, but it includes
the water column, seafloor and sub seafloor, and looking both at the biology as well as
the environment in that area.
Ocean Exploration explores using a variety of different mechanisms.
We have the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer image, here at the top left.
As well as the remotely operated vehicle, Deep Discoverer, that can sample up to 6000
meters below the surface.
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 I 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 in yellow here.
Within the boundaries, you can see the unmapped areas within the deepwater highlighted in
pink.
So, these are areas of 200 meters and greater that are currently unmapped.
This map was created February 2021.
And a map of this is included within our Frequently Asked Questions document, on our funding website,
and GIS layers of this map are also provided too, so you could be able to download it and
see where these areas are located.
So for our fiscal year 22 opportunity, it is open to U.S. based institutions of higher
education, non-profit institutions, state, local, and tribal governments, federal agencies,
for-profit institutions, and U.S. Territories.
We anticipate approximately three million available to fund about 4 to 10 awards, depending
on the funding requests.
These awards can be for 1 to 2 year projects, but the funding request must range from $75,000
up to $750,000.
Any request outside this range will not be eligible for funding.
The themes for the fiscal year 22 opportunity include ocean exploration, marine archeology,
and technology.
And I'm going to go through in detail about each of these different themes.
For ocean exploration, it's defined as exploration of the biological, chemical and physical ocean
environments in unknown or poorly explored U.S. deepwater areas.
These proposals must be in water depths 200 meters and greater.
This year in particular, we're focused on priorities that were identified by the Consortium
for Ocean Leadership Pacific Workshop Report.
You can see the link to this report within our Notice of Funding Opportunity, as well
as within our Frequently Asked Questions on our Funding Opportunity website.
We're also looking for proposals focused on deep ocean acoustics or the water column,
seafloor habitat, biology and marine resources.
Any use of autonomous and other innovative technologies is a priority for our office.
The marine archeology theme is defined as exploration and discovery of underwater cultural
heritage sites and objects to enrich U.S. maritime history.
It can be conducted on any water depth, so it is not limited to those below 200 meters
I mentioned above.
This year there is a focus on the priorities identified by the COL Pacific Workshop Report.
There's also a focus on submerged evidence of early human migration and occupation on
the continental shelf and places significant to U.S. history.
And, again, the use of autonomous systems and other innovative technologies is a priority
for us.
And for the technology theme, we define that as application of new or novel use of existing
ocean technologies or innovative methods that can increase the scope and efficiency of acquiring
ocean exploration data and expanding the availability and use of that data.
For this theme, it must be applicable to water depths 200 meters or deeper, preferably full
ocean depth.
However, we do allow shallow water or lab based testing within the U.S. Exclusive Economic
Zone.
And this year, we're particularly interested in innovative sensors and technologies that
can increase the capabilities of autonomous seagoing systems.
And we're also interested in AI and machine learning applications.
We strongly recommend that you consult the NOAA Artificial Intelligence Strategic Plan,
for information on NOAA defined AI and machine learning.
And the link to that plan is found within our Notice of Funding Opportunity, as well
as on our website.
So here's the timeline for our fiscal year 2022 opportunity.
The Notice of Funding Opportunity was published on May 17th.
And our pre-proposal deadline for this year is June 21st, 2021.
All applicants must submit a pre-proposal by the deadline in order to be eligible to
submit the full proposal.
Our full proposal deadline is October 8, 2021, and we anticipate sending the proposers notification
of the award by April of 2022, with an anticipated start date of September 2022.
Here are the requirements for applying to this year's funding opportunity.
All resources and instructions, like I said, can be found on our website listed here.
This website is also included within the Notice of Funding Opportunity, in case you don't
have access to it.
But it's oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/about/funding-opps/welcome.html
On our website, you'll find the Notice of Funding Opportunity, which includes details
about all the requirements, including a checklist of everything that must be submitted, along
with the application.
Includes the cover sheets that will be required as part of your submissions, and instructions
for how to complete the cover sheet.
It also includes guidance on budget tables and data management plans.
The required NEPA questionnaire document, as well as the Frequently Asked Questions
document.
This Frequently Asked Questions document will be updated throughout the year, so please
consult this document throughout the process.
So, in order to be eligible to submit a full proposal to this funding opportunity, all
applicants must submit a pre-proposal.
The required materials to submit with the pre-proposal are the NOAA Ocean Exploration
Notice of Funding Opportunity Cover Sheet, which can be found on our website.
Along with this cover sheet, you will submit a maximum of two pages for the pre-proposal,
and this is due June 21st, 2021.
This pre-proposal should be submitted via email to this email address, oer.ffo2022@noaa.gov.
If proposers are unable to submit an email, they can mail their pre-proposal to the mailing
address, but it must be received by the deadline.
When emailing a proposal, please include your last name, as well as Ocean Exploration pre-proposal
in the email subject line.
For the full proposal, proposals will also need to include that Notice of Funding Opportunity
Cover Sheet.
Please make sure to update that cover sheet based on any changes that have been made to
the full proposal.
Along with that cover sheet, proposers should include an executive summary at maximum of
one page.
Project Narrative, maximum of 15 pages.
A data and information sharing plan, maximum two pages, and as I mentioned, there is great
guidance on our website about how to put together this data and information sharing and the
requirements of it.
An outreach and education plan, maximum of one page, and a statement of diversity and
inclusion, maximum of one page.
Along with your project narrative, proposers should also include the references that they
cite throughout their project narrative.
We also ask that you include previous significant results.
A summary of grant funding support for each of the principal investigators.
A CV per each principal investigator, budget justification and budget tables, and if applicable,
the negotiated indirect cost rate amount, as well as the NEPA questionnaire.
And again, you can find that NEPA questionnaire link on our website.
It is optional for you to submit letters of support and suggested reviewers.
We do encourage you to submit these if you have them, because it will help during the
review process.
For non federal applicants, it is also required to submit the following forms.
Links to all these forms can be found within the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
And the full proposal, so all these materials, are due by October 8, 2021.
For non federal applicants, you'll submit these documents as individual documents via
Grants.gov.
Federal applicants will be submitting this via email to the OER FFO 2022 email address.
And, again, just a reminder, in order to be eligible to submit the full proposal, you
do have to submit the pre-proposal by the June 21st deadline.
The format for the full proposal, it must be formatted to print on 8.5 by 11 paper with
one inch margins and 12 point font.
PDF is the preferred and recommended format.
The principal investigator's last name should be typed into the bottom right hand corner
of each of the pages.
In all, digital files should be named with the applicant's last name and a descriptor
indicating the final content.
Titles must be no longer than 15 words, or 100 characters.
If any, if it is over 100 characters, it will not fit in the title section of the cover
sheet.
So, each pre-proposal and full proposal will go through the review process.
The pre-proposal is reviewed via NOAA Ocean Exploration internal evaluation panel.
They will review each pre-proposal based on the evaluation criterion listed within the
Notice of Funding Opportunity.
And that criterion includes: looking at the relevance to NOAA and NOAA Ocean Exploration
missions and goals, looking at the scientific and technical merits, reviewing the qualifications
and competency of the applicants, including past performance on prior NOAA Ocean Exploration
awards, and reviewing costs for specific items, as well as the overall project costs, including
value of cost sharing, and/or in kind contributions.
Each pre-proposal will receive an encourage or discourage for submitting to a full proposal.
PIs or principal investigators that receive or discourage are still eligible to submit
a full proposal.
The full proposal will go through two rounds of review.
The first will be a mail peer review, and this is where the full proposal is emailed
out to multiple different experts to review the full proposal based on the evaluation
criteria listed in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
A minimum of three mail reviewers will review each proposal.
Then, the proposal will go through the panel review, where a panel of experts will review
the full proposal, again, based on the evaluation criteria listed within the Notice of Funding
Opportunity.
And, again, there will be a minimum of three panel reviewers that will review each proposal.
Therefore, each full proposal will receive at least six reviews.
So the evaluation criteria for the full proposal are stated here, as well as within the Notice
of Funding Opportunity.
The first evaluation criterion that they will review the proposals based on is the importance
or relevance and applicability of the proposal to NOAA and NOAA Ocean Exploration mission
goals.
This is 30% of the total score.
The reviewers are asked to ascertain whether there is intrinsic value in the proposed work
and relevance to NOAA federal, regional, state, or local activities.
For the NOAA Ocean Exploration program, this includes: is the proposed project germane
to NOAA’s mission goals.
Is that proposal exploration focused versus being research focused?
And I'll point you back to the NOMEC definition I provided above for ocean exploration.
Also, could the anticipated results have high downstream impact?
The second evaluation criteria, which is also worth 30%, is science and technical merit.
This criterion assesses whether the approach is technically sound and or innovative, whether
the methods are appropriate, and whether there are clear project goals and objectives.
For the NOAA Ocean Exploration program, this includes: Is the proposed approach scientifically
and technically feasible, is the proposal innovative?
Are there clear project goals and objectives?
Is the project interdisciplinary?
Are the methods commensurate with the goals and objectives, are the plans for documentation,
archival, and sharing of data, multimedia, and specimen collections adequately outlined.
The next evaluation criterion worth 15% is the overall qualifications of the applicant.
This criterion asks the reviewers to ascertain whether the applicants possess the necessary
education, experience, training, facilities, and administrative resources to accomplish
the project
For NOAA Ocean Exploration review process, that includes evaluating the qualifications
of the applicant, and the strength, breadth and depth of any partnerships to accomplish
the work proposed.
Additionally, if the applicant has previously received NOAA Ocean Exploration funding, this
criteria also asks the reviewers to assess the applicant’s prior NOAA Ocean Exploration
award performance.
This can also include timely publication of results and sharing of data.
The next evaluation criterion, which is worth 15%, is the project cost.
So this criterion asks the reviewers to evaluate the proposal budget, to determine if it's
realistic and commensurate with the proposed project needs and timeframe.
The final evaluation criterion worth 10% is outreach and education and diversity and inclusion.
This criterion assesses whether the project provides a focus and effective education and
outreach strategy regarding NOAA's mission to provide the nation's natural resources
and provides opportunities to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups.
For the NOAA Ocean Exploration program, this includes the evaluation of the proposal budget,
and to determine if the proposal includes an outreach and education plan that will target
diverse future generations of explorers.
So I’m going to go through a couple of tips.
When completing and submitting our proposals, make sure to read the entire Notice of Funding
Opportunity thoroughly, it includes multiple tips as well as the checklists I mentioned
above to make sure that you submit all the items that are required as part of both the
pre-proposal and full proposal.
Also, make sure to read through the basis for our program priorities.
This year, in particular, make sure to look at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership Workshop
report, the NOMEC strategy and implementation plan.
Links to all of these plans and reports are included on our website, as well as within
the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Make sure to fill in all applicable fields of the cover sheet thoroughly and accurately,
And please ensure that your cover sheet and proposal match, especially when you look at
your budget numbers.
And also, we recommend that you look through the list of past grant funded recipients on
the NOAA Ocean Exploration website to get an idea of the projects that have been funded
in the past.
And you can find all of those past projects from 2014 to now, by looking at our funding
opportunity website listed right here.
And please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.
You can email us at this email here, oer.ffo2022@noaa.gov.
And some tips for the data management plans.
You must make sure that all data is discoverable and accessible to the public.
This means that it should be an archive-ready, machine-readable, open-source, nonproprietary
format, and at a minimum, submitted to NCEI, if applicable.
This data should be free of charge, or at cost of reproduction.
And there are deadlines for when this data must be submitted and available.
All this information, like I mentioned, is available on our website.
And we do have the data management plan, information and guidance document, that you can consult,
that provides tips, as well as guidance of what should be included within this data management
plan.
Some tips for the education and outreach and diversity and inclusion component: for the
education and outreach, we encourage you to think of innovative ways to engage with multiple
different stakeholders and a commitment to work with NOAA Ocean Exploration and web communication
is necessary, but it's not enough.
Diversity is defined as a collection of individual attributes, but together help organizations
achieve objectives, and inclusion is a culture that connects each employee to the organization.
So, with that in mind, we recommend that you describe how the proposed activity broadens
the participation of these underrepresented groups.
And tips for the budget table and justifications: provide as much detail as you possibly can,
for example, include airfare and per diem estimates, wherever applicable, and if your
requesting for funding is for two years, then narrative must be divided into Year One and
Year Two sections.
And each year has to be clearly identified as Year One and Year Two and displayed separately
in two different sections.
And guidance on these budget tables and your justification also is found on our website,
on the Funding Opportunity site.
And make sure to double check again that your cover sheet, Executive Summary, Budget Narrative,
and OMB Forms are all consistent, ensuring that those numbers all match up.
And that's all I had for you all.
So, we're going to turn it over to any questions you might have, and I'll answer them live.
Thanks Adrienne.
Let's give Adrienne a virtual round of applause for that very informative presentation.
And, if anybody has any questions, feel free to drop them in the question box or the chat
box.
But, we will be answering them out loud, and then also in written form.
But we have one question right now: Will NOAA consider proposals for work in territorial
waters, and or state waters for the fiscal year 2022 or 2022 opportunity?
Yeah, thank you for that question, it’s a great question.
So for our ocean exploration and marine archeology themes, we're specifically looking for proposals
that are within the Pacific Ocean, looking at areas and topics that were identified within
the Consortium for Ocean Leadership Pacific Workshop Report that we provided a link to.
And we are specifically looking within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone for those two
topics, and I welcome you to again, visit that workshop report, and see if your areas
of interests fall in line with those priorities.
For the technology theme, though, it is more broad.
You are able to test technology outside of those spatial priorities that are for the
other two themes, because you're able to test in shallow waters, or lab based testing.
So there is an opportunity to test in territorial waters, or state waters.
Thanks.
The questions are really rolling in now.
So, this next question is somewhat related, a little bit more specific.
Are proposals that include non-U.S. EEZs geographies eligible, specifically regarding comparative
research, which means sister marine sanctuaries with one site being within the U.S. EEZ and
the other being within waters of the sovereign state in free association with the U.S.?
That's a great question.
So we did not restrict that, as long as you are proposing work that was within the priority
region at follow on work would be eligible.
It was mainly that the initial request should be within the priorities outlined within that
COL Workshop report.
Yeah, and then our next question is: can organizations submit more than one proposal?
That is a great question.
So, yes, we do not limit the amount of pre-proposals that a proposer can submit.
Typically, though, during the pre-proposal review phase, if multiple lead PIs are submitting
a proposal, a lot of times, we do recommend that you narrow it down to one proposal for
the full proposal stage because there has not been an instance where a main PI has led
more than one project in a fiscal year.
Thank you.
Next question is, does the pre-proposal need to include all the elements of a full proposal,
such as data management plan and outreach plan?
That is a great question.
No, not to the same level.
So with the pre-proposal, you only get two pages, and we do ask you to include a couple
of sentences about those items, but you do not include the full max two pages that are
required as part of the full proposal.
And I do recommend whoever asked this question to consult our Notice of Funding Opportunity
because, within that, it clearly outlines what is needed for that pre-proposal phase.
Next question is, does the budget cap include or exclude ship time costs?
For example, daily cost for the Okeanos Explorer.
If yes, where can we find details on these costs?
That is a great question.
So, a couple things I want to touch on.
So, yes, the budget cap would include shiptime request if you are requesting funding to cover
any shiptime from NOAA Ocean Exploration.
So, the budget total, that $750,000 cap, has to include all funding amounts that the proposer
would need to accomplish the project including shiptime or any like vehicle, assets, et cetera.
And I will highlight, so this funding opportunity, none of the money, actually, can be utilized
for NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
So there is not an opportunity, as part of this funding opportunity to, to have shiptime
on that ship paid for through this funding opportunity.
OK, next question is: Is the geographic area for this call limited to the Pacific except
for technology?
Yes, that is correct.
Next question is, are in-kind and cash contributions from other government agencies allowed?
Yes.
We strongly encourage you to seek out in-kind support from
other entities as part of your funding opportunity.
We do review the in-kind and leverage components as part of the pre-proposal review.
That is not included as part of the full proposal review, but when we do provide recommendations
for funding to the Grants Management Division as part of awarding these various proposals,
we do take leverage and in-kind costs into account.
So, it is always good and strongly suggested to include those amounts if you have them
and to include letters of support as part of your packages.
Thanks Adrienne.
Do pre-proposal need to be submitted through the grants.gov site, or that only applicable
to the full proposal?
It is only applicable to the full proposal, so for the pre-proposals, you'll be submitting
them to the email that I listed, and it's also provided here.
So it's the email, oer.ffo2022@noaa.gov.
So you would just submit your pre-proposal to that email by the deadline of June 21st,
and then we would review that internally and send you back, either an encourage or discourage
via email to the email address you provide.
Thanks Adrienne.
And then there is a question for some clarification on the technologies.
So, it sounded like you said that technology could propose shallow water, but on the slide
it said technology was restricted to depth greater than 200 meters.
Could you please clarify?
Yes.
I apologize for the confusion, but, so what we're saying, for the technology theme, anything
that's developed needs to be applicable to deep water, so 200 meters and deeper.
And we encourage full ocean depth technology.
However, shallow based testing, lab based testing is appropriate and eligible, so you
do not actually need to do full ocean depths or 200m or deeper testing as part of your
proposal.
It just needs to be technology that could eventually be utilized for deep sea work.
I hope that clarifies it, but, if not, please ask a follow up question.
And I'm happy to clarify.
Thanks Adrienne.
There is one follow up question regarding the earlier question about the non-U.S. EEZ
areas with the sister sanctuary.
Question is, what do you mean by initial request?
Is that in reference to the pre-proposal, or something else?
So, sorry for the confusion on that.
So, the main bulk of the proposed work should be within the COL, the Consortium for Ocean
Leadership Workshop report’s priorities areas, so within the Pacific and the U.S.
Exclusive Economic Zone.
However, if you're doing work that's in the region,
but it also borders sister sanctuaries or elsewhere,
but the priority of the funding is going to those priority areas, then it is still eligible
for funding.
I don't know if I made that more confusing, but I'm happy to clarify more.
There are some thank yous in here Adrienne.
Good job answering questions.
Are historical sites limited to the Pacific?
I'm guessing by historical sites, they're asking about the marine archeology theme.
And yes, so for this year, the marine archeology theme is focused on the Pacific Ocean, as
well as, within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone
or within the areas and spatial priorities listed within that Consortium for Ocean Leadership
Workshop report.
But I do want to highlight, again, for the marine archeology theme, it does not need
to be at water depth, 200 meters or deeper.
It can be at shallower waters and submerged land forms.
OK, next question is, what percentage of the invited full proposals are typically funded?
That is a really great question, and so I can give you much averages throughout the
years
since I've been involved.
We typically get anywhere from about 80 to
last year was our highest, we got 126 pre-proposals, and then from those pre-proposals, we typically
recommend or encourage, so we typically encourage somewhere in the thirties to submit full proposals.
And then we get anywhere from high twenties, so like 28, upwards to about 35 full proposals.
Last year we received 36.
And from there, we typically fund about, like I said, anywhere from 4 to 10 projects, so
you’re looking at about a third of the full proposals that get funded.
Thanks, Adrienne.
That is the end of the questions that are currently in the questions tab.
I encourage anyone else with any lingering questions to pop them into here so that we
can address them now.
Here is one: For a technology proposal, does the final field tests need to be carried out
at a geological priority site?
Now, the technology proposals are not limited spatially.
So no, it does not.
Thanks.
There are currently no other questions.
We can wait it out a little bit.
Quick follow up to that last question, can those test sites for technology be international?
That's a great question.
We did not put specific language with our Notice of Funding Opportunity limiting it,
and not letting it be international.
So, technically, you could propose in international waters.
Um, I would recommend though
budget and costs are one of the things that reviewers really look at.
So if you were to propose something in international waters, to make sure to justify why that needs
to be the case.
Because a lot of times, shipping and costs like that can be much higher, so it's just
something to keep in mind.
But, technically, there is no limitation within the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Thanks.
Um, there is a confusion about the maritime heritage spatial limitation.
The EEZ, the Exclusive Economic Zone, includes the East Coast.
So will that area be considered for maritime heritage work?
No.
And so within the theme this year, we did say that it needs to be within the Pacific
Ocean for both the ocean exploration and marine archeology themes.
Getting some thank yous, Adrienne.
Well, thank you all for attending.
This is our second year doing this Funding Opportunity Webinar, so we welcome any feedback
or questions and comments that you might have after this experience.
So again, please don't hesitate to reach out, our email, again is oer.ffo2022@noaa.gov.
And if there is any still outstanding questions, anything that you would like us to follow
up with you more on, please, again, you can reach us at that email, and we will be more
than happy to try to answer any question you might have.
I think there maybe is no more questions.
I just want to, again, thank my staff behind the scene that made this possible.
You guys have been hearing the voice of Dr. Jen Le.
And then we have Dr. Lu Wang behind the scenes answering all your questions digitally.
But again, like I said, thank you all for joining and don't hesitate to reach out, both
the email up here, as well as the phone number here listed, will reach me directly.
And I'd be more than happy to follow up with you.
If you have any further questions, and, again, I strongly encourage you to visit our website.
Oceanexplorer.noaa.gov.
Within our website, on the Funding Opportunity page, you'll see a lot of the documents I
mentioned, including the Frequently Asked Questions, and we will, again, be updating
our frequently asked questions throughout the year based on questions we get.
So please check back at that, as well.
I want to thank you all again for attending.
And good luck with this year's FY22 Ocean Exploration funding proposal, and thank you
all.