2024 NOAA OE Funding

Dear Colleagues,

NOAA Ocean Exploration is pleased to announce its Ocean Exploration Fiscal Year 2024 Funding Opportunity. NOAA Ocean Exploration is dedicated to exploring the unknown ocean, unlocking its potential through scientific discovery, technological advancements, partnerships, and data delivery. By leading national efforts to fill gaps in basic understanding of the marine environment, we are providing critical ocean data, information, and awareness needed to strengthen the economy, health, and security of the United States and the world.

NOAA Ocean Exploration is soliciting proposals for ocean exploration-related projects under three themes. By supporting exploration, i.e., discovery through disciplined, diverse observations, NOAA Ocean Exploration seeks to advance our basic understanding of waters under U.S. jurisdiction. Projects under the ocean exploration and discovery and technology themes are restricted to waters under U.S. jurisdiction and should support national priorities such as those in the Strategic Priorities for Ocean Exploration and Characterization of the United States Exclusive Economic Zone developed per the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the United States Exclusive Economic Zone. Projects under the maritime heritage theme are not restricted to waters under U.S. jurisdiction. All projects should support at least one of NOAA’s science and technology priorities of uncrewed systems, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, ’omics, data, and citizen science.

For Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) funding, NOAA Ocean Exploration is soliciting proposals focused on any one of the following three themes:

OCEAN EXPLORATION and DISCOVERY: Proposals should be in support of the NOAA Ocean Exploration mission to explore unknown or poorly known ocean areas, processes, and resources in waters deeper than 200 meters. Thus, NOAA Ocean Exploration is particularly interested in exploration of physical, chemical, and biological environments and processes within the oceanic water column in these deep waters. However, proposals for projects in shallower waters will be considered if they focus on exploration of tropical mesophotic environments. All proposals should be for work within waters under U.S. jurisdiction and describe how the work will address the thematic and geographic priorities for ocean exploration in the Strategic Priorities for Ocean Exploration and Characterization of the United States Exclusive Economic Zone.

TECHNOLOGY: Proposals should feature application of new or novel use of existing ocean technologies or innovative methods that could increase the scope and efficiency of acquiring ocean exploration data and expanding its availability and use. NOAA Ocean Exploration is particularly interested in proposals for technologies that are platform agnostic (work across multiple platforms) and/or address novel methods (for example machine learning and artificial intelligence) to analyze existing publicly accessible large datasets. Proposed ocean technologies must be applicable to water depths of 200 meters or greater, preferably full-ocean depth (testing in shallower water or lab-based testing is acceptable), address at least one of the defined ocean exploration variables as referenced in the “Exploration Variables Identified by NOAA Ocean Exploration” technical memorandum, and describe how the work will address the thematic and geographic priorities for ocean exploration in the Strategic Priorities for Ocean Exploration and Characterization of the United States Exclusive Economic Zone.

MARITIME HERITAGE: Proposals should address exploration and discovery of significant maritime heritage resources that improve archaeological knowledge and inform decisions concerning preservation, management, and potential seafloor use. Maritime heritage projects can be conducted in any water depth, can focus on prehistoric and historic-period subjects, and are not restricted to waters under U.S. jurisdiction. Data products must benefit other academic and resource management disciplines. NOAA Ocean Exploration is particularly interested in proposals that include the use of innovative and advanced technology and methodology.

The deadline for the pre-proposals, which are required, is May 30, 2023, at 4:59 p.m. EDT. Full proposals are due by October 5, 2023.

The notice of funding opportunity was published on April 10, 2023, and is available on the NOAA Ocean Exploration website and Grants.gov. 

A webinar about the funding opportunity will be held on April 20, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Registration is open. A recording of the webinar will be made available on the https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/about/funding-opps/welcome.html. Additional questions may be directed to oer.nofo2024@noaa.gov.

Please share widely with your networks. Thank you.

Phil–

Phil Hartmeyer

NOAA Ocean Exploration (UCAR)

Marine Archaeologist

M: 925-286-9648