Baton Rouge, La. — The RESTORE Act Center of Excellence for Louisiana released a Request for Proposals Friday, encouraging coastal researchers, both student and professional, to apply for about $3 million in competitive grant money. Projects submitted for these two-year awards must support research directly related to the implementation of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan which guides the state’s coastal restoration and protection work.
The funding comes from settlements of the federal Water Pollution Control Act in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which flow through the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to the Center.
The expected funding will be awarded in three categories:
Research Awards: These awards support research activities directly tied to the Center’s Research Strategy of helping implement projects in Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan. These areas could include field studies, computer modeling, laboratory work, archival research, surveys, or data analysis. Any organization, including academic institutions, private firms, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies, in Louisiana or around the world, may take the lead on these proposals. Projects should include meaningful roles for students and postdoctoral fellows.
Collaborative Awards: These awards require collaboration among institutions and different areas of study to pull together cross-discipline research as set out by the Center’s Research Strategy. Projects should include meaningful roles for students and postdoctoral fellows. The leader of each project must be a full-time employee of a Louisiana college or university.
Graduate Studentships: These awards provide money for full-time graduate student stipends, tuition and minimal (less than $5,000) in research expenses to support graduate students at Louisiana colleges and universities for up to two years. In their study, the graduate student would take on a research topic identified in the Center’s Research Strategy. Internships with private organizations may be included as part of the graduate student’s training, but funding for the organization’s expenses cannot be supported.
Selection of the award recipients will occur in the first half of next year allowing researchers to start work on their projects in August 2017.
The deadline for submission of Letters of Intent is December 9, 2016, and the deadline for submission of full proposals is January 25, 2017. The submission of a Letter is Intent is required before submission of a full proposal for Research and Collaborative Awards.
The RFP and the Center’s Research Strategy can be downloaded from the Center’s website: www.LA-COE.org. All questions should be directed to LA-COE@thewaterinstitute.org. Responses to questions will be addressed as outlined in the RFP.
Additional information on the RESTORE Act Center of Excellence for Louisiana can be found at www.LA-COE.org.
About The RESTORE Act Center of Excellence for Louisiana
The mission of the RESTORE Act Center of Excellence for Louisiana is to provide research directly relevant to implementation of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan by administering a competitive grants program and providing the appropriate coordination and oversight support to ensure that success metrics are tracked and achieved. The Center is a separate program within The Water Institute of the Gulf, which is a not-for-profit, independent research institute dedicated to advancing the understanding of coastal, deltaic, river and water resource systems, both within the Gulf Coast and around the world.