Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit | G21AS00559

Opportunity Information: Apply for G21AS00559

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), through its Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (WARC), announced a discretionary funding opportunity under the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Program to support applied research and development focused on handling large ecological datasets. The opportunity is issued as a cooperative agreement, which typically means the federal agency expects to have substantial involvement during the project (for example, collaborating on technical direction, data standards, deliverables, or coordination with USGS scientists and stakeholders), rather than simply providing a grant with minimal engagement.

The core purpose of the project is to investigate efficient approaches and to develop software tools and/or models that improve how large ecological data are stored, analyzed, transformed, modeled, visualized, and shared. In practical terms, this could include work on data architecture for big ecological datasets, streamlined processing pipelines, reproducible analytics, scalable modeling workflows, visualization methods for complex environmental information, and improved dissemination practices so that data and results are more usable by scientists, decision-makers, and the broader resource management community. The emphasis is not only on technical innovation, but on producing outcomes that broadly benefit ecological research, ecological data collection and modeling efforts, and natural resource management applications.

Eligibility is limited to organizations that are already participating partners within the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit network. In other words, only a CESU-affiliated partner specifically within the Gulf Coast CESU can apply, reflecting the CESU program structure as a partnership mechanism that connects federal agencies with universities, nonprofits, and other qualified entities to deliver research, technical assistance, and education in support of public land and resource stewardship.

The funding opportunity is identified as Funding Opportunity Number G21AS00559 and is associated with CFDA (now commonly referred to as Assistance Listing) 15.808. The listed award ceiling is $425,000, indicating the maximum amount expected for an individual award under this announcement. The posting was created on June 9, 2021, and the original application closing date was July 9, 2021. The agency is the Geological Survey (USGS), and the activity category is Science and Technology and other Research and Development, aligning with the tool-building, modeling, and data-science-oriented nature of the proposed work.

Overall, this opportunity is aimed at strengthening the ecological informatics and analytical capacity of the research and management community by supporting a Gulf Coast CESU partner to create or advance scalable, efficient, and practical methods for managing and using large ecological datasets, with USGS-WARC positioned as an active collaborator through the cooperative agreement framework.

• The Geological Survey in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.808.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-06-09.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-07-09. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $425,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for G21AS00559

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