NOAA National Sea Grant Office: Grant for Contaminants of Emerging Concern Research

Federal agencies and their personnel are not permitted to receive federal funding under this competition; however, federal scientists and other employees can serve as uncompensated partners or co-Principal Investigators on applications. Federal labs and offices can also make available specialized expertise, facilities, or equipment to applicants but cannot be compensated under this competition for their use.

To be eligible to apply or receive an award, applicant organizations must complete and maintain three registrations; SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and eRA Commons. For each, the complete registration process can take 4 to 6 weeks, so applicants must begin this activity as soon as possible and well before the proposal due date. For more information on how to meet these registration and application submission requirements without errors, we advise all to carefully review relevant Applicant and Grantee Training modules: https://www.commerce.gov/ocio/programs/gems/applicant-and-grantee-training. Additionally, we advise that all carefully read ‘Additional Application Package Forms’ within the ‘Full Proposal Required Elements’ section below.

The National Sea Grant College Program was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1966 (amended in 2020, Public Law 116-221) to support leveraged federal and state partnerships that harness the intellectual capacity of the nation’s universities and research institutions to solve problems and generate opportunities in coastal communities.

NOAA’s National Sea Grant Office (NSGO) anticipates between $400,000 and $1,400,000 will be available for one (1) award to support future competed research that addresses Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) across a shared geography, biogeography or watershed. Each application should be scalable up to $1,400,000 in federal funds per project and may be for up to three years.

Applications require the standard 50% non-federal match for Sea Grant projects. This will be a stand-alone (i.e., non-omnibus) award. It is the NSGO’s intent (pending appropriations) that, based on satisfactory award performance, and continued relevance to program objectives, the selected Sea Grant program will be eligible to receive additional funding to address priority gaps and emerging challenges related to Contaminants of Emerging Concern if additional future funding becomes available.

Applicants are encouraged to develop a future competition to fund projects that research and monitor CECs, including PFAS, that may cause ecological or human health impacts in coastal and estuarine waters. If the region has received funding from past Sea Grant CEC competitions, applicants are encouraged to demonstrate how this proposal will build off of those prior collaborative efforts and previously selected CEC projects.

Applicants should propose future competed research competitions to select projects that meet the scope below. Proposed work should:

• 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.

All projects must take place within the United States or territories or their respective waterways.

Applicant organizations must complete and maintain three registrations to be eligible to apply for or receive an award. These registrations include SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and eRA Commons. All registrations must be completed prior to the application being submitted. The complete registration process for all three systems can take 4 to 6 weeks, so applicants should begin this activity as soon as possible. If an eligible applicant does not have access to the internet, please contact the Agency Contacts listed in Section VII for submission instructions. NOAA has created a guide to aid applicants format application packages to eRA: Tips and Tricks for Successful eRA Submissions, linked here.

Prior to registering with eRA Commons, applicant organizations must first obtain a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) from SAM.gov, if needed (refer to Section IV. Applications and Submission Information, Section C). Organizations can register with eRA Commons in tandem with completing their full SAM and Grants.gov registrations; however, all registrations must be in place by time of application submission. eRA Commons requires organizations to identify at least one Signing Official (SO) and at least one Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) account in order to submit an application.

This document sets out requirements for submitting to NOAA-OAR-SG-2025-30385.