FY21 Adaptation Sciences Federal Funding Opportunities FAQ

Yes

Full applications must be received by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, November 30, 2020. Applications must be submitted via grants.gov unless the applicant does not have access to the Internet.

If you do not have Internet access, submit your proposal as a hard copy via mail or courier. Mailed submissions must also be received in the office by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, November 30, 2020. Hard copies received after this date and time will not be accepted. Applications cannot be submitted via email or fax.

In order to submit an application through Grants.gov, an applicant must register for a Grants.gov user ID and password. Note that this process can take between three to five business days or as long as four weeks if all steps are not completed correctly. To avoid delays, applicants are strongly encouraged to start early and not wait until the approaching application deadline before registering, logging in, reviewing the application instructions, and applying. Information about the Grants.gov registration process for organizations can be found at http://grants.gov/applicants/organization_registration.jsp.

Please note that organizations already registered with Grants.gov do not need to re-register; however, all registered organizations must keep their Grants.gov password and SAM database (which now incorporates CCR) registration up-to-date or their applications will not be accepted by Grants.gov. Note that your CCR username will not work in SAM. You must create a new SAM user account to renew or update your registration. Registration on SAM is a requirement. To obtain additional information and to verify that all required registrations are current, please visit www.sam.gov/SAM/.

Federal and non-­‐federal employees can submit letters of support as part of the application. If an applicant has identified a community with which they will be working, a letter will show commitment from both parties; no letter will portray the opposite. If you have a number of letters to include, feel free to reduce them and put several on one page. On the other hand, too many letters, (i.e., from those not directly involved in the proposed study) may be irrelevant to the reviewers. All letters of support should be submitted as part of the full application and are not included in the page limit for the proposals.

Full applications are limited to 35 pages, single spaced, using 12-point font type with one-inch margins on standard 8.5 by 11 inch paper. For full applications with three or more Principal Investigators, the page limit is increased to 40.

The NOFO describes the components of a full application on page 10.

Make sure that you read the NOFO about specifics. For example, there are specifications as what should appear on the title page. If applicable, also make sure to indicate on the title page if this proposal has subawards or is being submitted via separate applications along with a chart that is a breakdown of the budget and lead PIs by institution and year.

There are two options:

● one institution is the lead and the other institution(s) subcontract to the lead; or

● participating institution submits separate applications.

If using the second option, each institution MUST SUBMIT the exact same full proposal; the Federal forms and budgets tables should be institution-­‐specific. In this case, the title page should show the different institutions involved so that we can match them up for the review process and also be assured that all have been submitted as well and that their budget numbers concur by year (often this is done in a table).

AdSci will seek to fund a combination of 1 and 2 year projects in FY 21. Proposals should not exceed $300,000 total.

Principal federal investigators who wish to apply to this Announcement of Opportunity should submit their proposal directly to nancy.beller-simms@noaa.gov by the deadline listed above. However, note that we cannot support federal employee salaries.

Yes. However, keep in mind that the results of the work are public and cannot solely benefit one organization or community.

Multidisciplinary teams of investigators are often best suited for addressing the complex issues related to climate, environment, society and enhanced adaptation through the use of science and/or technology. Thus, we encourage applications from PI teams integrating across the disciplines of the social, natural and/or physical sciences. In the past, many of the successful projects have involved decision makers/stakeholders/resource managers as direct participants in the planning, research, dissemination, and/or evaluation phases of the project. Finally, the proposal should include a clear explanation of the roles of the investigators and how the team will interact and integrate the multiple components.

Investigators who will not be requesting funds for salaries must also be listed along with their estimated time of commitment.

Unless otherwise noted, projects can be focused in the US or overseas where the impacts of climate are acute and/or significant and are relevant to NOAA and current Federal Government interests. However, note that the intent of the projects should benefit domestic locations. International institutions should review the FFO for information on eligibility requirements.

● Please note that support for extensive modeling of physical and natural systems is more appropriately handled through the climate science programs within the other sections of NOAA's Climate Program Office or from other federal agencies.

● For such a short project, most likely a literature review will have been done prior to application.

● We encourage investigators to:

○ clearly and succinctly, within their abstract, describe the purpose of the work and relevance to the decision-making community they are working with;

○ describe in detail the proposed methodology and how it will be accomplished;

○ plainly identify the climate variability and change research, data, and/or information that will be used;

○ clearly define expected outcomes and outputs;

○ describe a plan to measure the success of the project; and

○ provide a clear plan for dissemination of the findings to relevant audiences.

● A successful project would include an evaluation component at the end of the project (and/or earlier if appropriate) to assess its utility to the stakeholder/decision-­‐ makers/users.

● Applications that can show that they are building on what is already known from the published literature about the proposed topic (e.g., value of climate information, decision making under uncertainty, use/transfer of new scientific information, integrated modeling of natural and human systems, impact of climate on sector activities, sectoral decision making analyses) illustrate that the PIs have a comprehension of the topic and that their proposed work will augment the existing science.

● Make sure you receive a receipt confirming submission from Grants-on-Line. This will count as your official receipt; you will not receive one from the competition manager. If you are having problems contact the help desk at: 1-­‐877-­‐662-­‐2478.

● We also highly suggest that as a backup, or if you do not have Internet access, submit your proposal as a hard copy via mail or courier. Mailed submissions must also be received in the office by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, November 30, 2020. Hard copies received after this date and time will not be accepted. Applications cannot be submitted via email or fax.

We cannot make funding decisions before Congress appropriates a budget. Our office will most likely receive a budget roughly a month after Congress has passed a NOAA’s budget. If Congress has passed a budget, we expect that decisions should be made in April.

September 1, 2021.