AK-24-03: Alaska Coastal Marine Institute | M24AS00303

Opportunity Information: Apply for M24AS00303

AK-24-03, the Alaska Coastal Marine Institute (CMI) opportunity, is a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) funding announcement that supports targeted research in Alaska marine and coastal environments tied to offshore energy and mineral activities on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The program stems from a long-standing partnership created in 1993 through a Memorandum of Agreement between BOEM (U.S. Department of the Interior) and the University of Alaska (UA). BOEM is responsible for managing OCS energy and mineral development in a way that is both environmentally and economically responsible, and its Environmental Studies Program, required under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, generates the science needed to understand how BOEM decisions may affect natural systems and coastal communities and how impacts can be avoided or reduced. CMI functions as the mechanism that lets BOEM work directly with UA researchers to produce defensible science that informs BOEM planning, leasing, permitting, and environmental review for Alaska OCS activities, including conventional energy, emerging renewable energy, and potential marine mineral development.

The core purpose of this opportunity is to fund studies that improve understanding and prediction of environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural processes relevant to offshore activity, especially where information gaps limit sound decision-making. BOEM frames CMI work around several types of projects: field or observational scientific studies that clarify marine, coastal, or human environments that may be affected by exploration and extraction; modeling efforts that strengthen the ability to forecast environmental or social outcomes from OCS-related activities; experimental studies that isolate causes and effects and explain key processes; projects that build or improve data-sharing mechanisms, protocols, or systems so agencies and stakeholders can access and use reliable information; and synthesis efforts that pull together existing scientific and socioeconomic knowledge to provide clear background and context for OCS decision needs.

For 2024, BOEM is specifically requesting proposals focused on the Lower Cook Inlet Planning Area, which narrows the geographic scope and signals a near-term management need in that region. Within that area, BOEM highlights priority research needs grouped into three broad themes. Under fate and effects of contaminants, the agency is looking for work on carbonate chemistry and organism responses to better assess coastal and ocean acidification risks and impacts on biological resources; improved understanding of oil-spill fate and weathering in both open-water and ice conditions, including refinements to spill modeling algorithms that are used for planning and response; and better characterization of sea-ice structural properties such as extent, thickness, movement/velocity, seasonality, and frequency of occurrence, with explicit attention to frazil ice and submerged ice that can complicate operations and alter spill behavior and ecosystem exposure. Under biology, priorities include research on how climate change is altering marine ecosystem function, methods to separate natural variability from human-caused impacts in estuarine and marine systems, and studies that clarify immigration and emigration pathways for adult and juvenile salmon, reflecting the importance of salmon to ecology, subsistence, and regional economies. Under marine mammals, BOEM is seeking improved knowledge of when and where baleen whales occur in lower Cook Inlet and Shelikof Strait, as well as analyses of vessel-traffic impacts in Cook Inlet on Cook Inlet belugas and other sensitive or protected populations, including ESA-listed humpback whale stocks, the Northeast population of fin whales, North Pacific right whales, and the Southwest sea otter population, with emphasis on collision risk and disturbance to critical behaviors like foraging, breeding, calving, and pupping.

Administratively, this is a discretionary funding opportunity using a cooperative agreement, which typically means BOEM expects substantial involvement in project coordination, technical direction, or integration of results into agency decision workflows. The eligible applicant category is public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, and the announcement indicates a single-source cooperative agreement with the University of Alaska, meaning the opportunity is structured around the established BOEM-UA partnership rather than open competition among many institutions. The opportunity is listed under CFDA 15.421, with an award ceiling of $250,000. The funding opportunity number is M24AS00303, and the original closing date is May 2, 2024. Overall, the grant is designed to produce applied, decision-relevant science for Lower Cook Inlet that helps BOEM anticipate and manage environmental and human-environment effects associated with offshore energy and mineral activities in Alaska.

• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the environment sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "AK-24-03: Alaska Coastal Marine Institute" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.421.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-04-02.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-05-02. (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 $250,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for M24AS00303

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