Funding Opportunities & Awarded Projects

The National Sea Grant Law Center’s funding opportunities seek to promote the growth and development of Sea Grant legal programming and build the capacity of individual Sea Grant programs to address legal issues in their states.*

*Sea Grant champions diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by recruiting, retaining and preparing a diverse workforce, and proactively engaging and serving the diverse populations of coastal communities. Sea Grant is committed to building inclusive research programs that serve people with unique backgrounds, circumstances, needs, perspectives, and ways of thinking. We encourage applicants of all ages, races, ethnicities, national origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, disabilities, cultures, religions, citizenship types, marital statuses, education levels, job classifications, veteran status types, and income and socioeconomic status types to apply for this opportunity.

2024 Sea Grant Law and Policy Journal Symposium Competition Results

In June 2024, the National Sea Law Grant Center awarded four universities a grant to organize and host academic symposiums addressing priority ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes law and policy topics. The proceedings from these symposia will be published as a special issue of the Sea Grant Law & Policy Journal.

Project Title: Puerto Rico at the Crux of Climate Change and Recovery, Puerto Rico Sea Grant, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

Project Description: The Sea Grant College Program at the University of Puerto Rico in collaboration with the Legal Clinic at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico School of Law, will convene a two-day symposium on coastal legal issues in the face of climate change, disaster recovery and fiscal austerity. The event will assemble scientists, practicing litigators, community members, legal scholars, and activists to contemplate coastal issues in a post-disaster context together. Legal professionals will address the development of the legal framework regulating the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests that converge on our coasts, and community activists and leaders will ensure that the dialogue will incorporate practical concerns regarding implementation, account for the changing nature of these communities, and explore alternative solutions. This new legal academic work on coastal matters will provide increased depth and new insight into norms that originated in the nineteenth century and have remained generally unchanged.

Project Title: Law and Policy Challenges to Coastal Adaptation in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland Sea Grant, University of Maryland

Project Description: Maryland Sea Grant (MDSG) in collaboration with Georgetown University Law Center’s Georgetown Climate Center and the Environmental Law Institute , will host a one-day symposium to highlight and analyze gaps in the existing adaptation legal frameworks and to further investigate mechanisms to improve existing legal structures to more effectively address the societal challenges brought on by a changing climate in Mid-Atlantic coastal communities. This symposium, and the subsequent related articles, will help (1) raise public, private, and government awareness of the Law Center’s Journal and MDSG’s Legal Fellowship program, (2) facilitate collaboration between other Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant programs and regional ocean and coastal organizations, and (3) advise the legislatures of Maryland and other Mid-Atlantic states on equitable, community-centered adaptation policies in need of legislation.

MDSG Press Release: Maryland Sea Grant to Hold Climate Adaptation Law and Policy Symposium

Project Title: Shape of the Coast Legal Learning at North Carolina’s 2024 Coastal Conference, North Carolina Sea Grant, North Carolina State University

Project Description: In alignment with the 2024 North Carolina Coastal Conference, and in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of General Counsel, the North Carolina Sea Grant will incorporate a “Shape of the Coast” symposium on Wednesday, November 13, 2024 in New Bern, NC. This symposium will be developed in partnership with a variety of legal experts and will support law and policy students in an engaging manner through a proposed mentorship approach. The interdisciplinary topics and partnership model will strengthen current relationships as well as develop new legal networks to address priority state, regional, and coastal needs for current and future professionals.

Project Title: Navigating Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal: From Science to Regulation, Columbia University

Project Description: Columbia University in collaboration with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and New York Sea Grant, will host a hybrid symposium that will explore legal and policy issues associated with Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) activities that aim to increase uptake and storage of carbon dioxide in the ocean. The symposium will provide an opportunity for legal and policy experts, regulators and government representatives, scientific researchers, industry groups, the NGO community, and others to discuss legal and policy frameworks for advancing marine CDR. The mCDR law symposium and its proceedings will help to improve knowledge and information sharing, spur additional research, and thereby advance sustainable mCDR.

2024-2027 Program Development Funds

The National Sea Grant Law Center (Law Center) is accepting proposals for small-scale research projects that seek to address timely or pressing legal questions related to ocean, coastal, or Great Lakes law. This funding is intended to support emerging research needs or innovative pilot research projects that may eventually develop into larger, full scale research projects. They are also intended to help a Sea Grant program build legal capacity by generating legal research findings that can be incorporated into extension, education, and communication programming. Requests for Program Development (PD) funds are limited to a maximum request of $10,000 and a one-year project period. Matching funds are not required.

Timetable: LOIs for one-year projects will be accepted on a rolling basis through August 1, 2026. Full proposals for one-year projects will be accepted on a rolling basis through October 1, 2026. Currently, the latest possible end date for any proposed project is January 31, 2028. Applicants must take this into consideration in their proposal timelines and allow for at least two months for full proposal review and award prior to implementation. For example, the recommended project period for a full proposal submitted on July 1, 2024 would be September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2025.

Eligibility: The Law Center is accepting applications from Sea Grant programs, institutes of higher education, or legal research organizations. Institutes of higher education and legal research organizations must have documented partnerships with Sea Grant Programs. Eligible applicants may request PD funds for small-scale research projects that seek to address timely or pressing legal questions related to ocean, coastal, or Great Lakes law, and have the potential to develop into larger research efforts or collaborations among institutes of higher education, legal research organizations, and Sea Grant partners.

If funding is available, Letters of Intent (LOI) that align with funding objectives will be encouraged to submit a full proposal. Applicants who submit LOIs for projects that are not aligned with funding objectives may not submit full proposals.

View Request for Proposals

Coastal Resilience Program

2023 Coastal Resilience Program Competition Results

The National Sea Law Grant Center awarded four universities a one-year research grant through its 2023 Coastal Resilience Program competition. The Law Center received ten full proposals that went through a rigorous evaluation process involving written peer reviewers and technical review panelists. Out of the ten full proposals received, the following were awarded:

Institution: University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc.

PI: Dr. Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold

Project Title: Equitable Coastal Urban Adaptation to Climate Change: A Resilience Justice Assessment Assessment

Project Description: The project will study the extent to which 8 urban study areas are adopting and implementing strategies that are well-designed to improve the adaptive capacities and reduce the vulnerabilities of marginalized communities, especially low-income neighborhoods and populations of color.

Institution: University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program

PI: Dolan Eversole

Project Title: Assessing the Effectiveness of Coastal Adaptation Policies in Hawai‘i: A Comprehensive Framework for Evaluation and Best Practices Comprehensive Framework for Evaluation and Best Practices

Project Description: The project will evaluate and assess selected adaptation policies by examining their performance against specific criteria, such as the stated objectives of the policy, the ability to protect against coastal hazards and climate change, cost-effectiveness, social and environmental impacts, and long-term sustainability. The research aims to provide insights into which strategies are most effective in protecting coastal areas from the impacts of climate change, identify any trade-offs or synergies between different adaptation strategies, as well as potential barriers and challenges to their implementation.

Institution: The Pennsylvania State University

PI: Christine J. Kirchhoff, Ph.D., P.E.

Project Title: Learning climate resilience: Investigation of the Maine Climate Adaptation Planning policy for climate resilient wastewater infrastructure policy for climate resilient wastewater infrastructure

Project Description: The project will assess the efficacy of the Climate Adaptation Policy (CAP) program for achieving stated policy objectives among participating wastewater systems including improving awareness about climate risks and assessing wastewater managers’ intention to adapt or actual progress in implementing climate adaptation measures. In addition, this research will also provide This project will also we seek to understand how the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s iterative and collaborative collective planning process affected the quality and content of climate action plans and the ability of municipalities to implement wastewater climate adaptation actions including whether the policy promoted more inclusive, equitable climate adaptation in the wastewater sector.

Institution: University of Massachusetts Boston

PI: John Duff, JD, LLM

Project Title: Coastal Preparedness & Resilience: Effects and Effectiveness of Two Policy Efforts

Project Description: This project will examine the origin, implementation, evolution, and effects of the programs to assess:

• the degree to which state coastal adaptation and resilience resource laws resulted in the development of municipal vulnerability plans and/or coastal resilience plans; and,
• how such plans set the stage for vulnerability preparedness and/or coastal resilience actions. Researchers will identify:
  

  – common vulnerabilities articulated in the MVP assessments and coastal resilience support requests; and,
  – common/best/unique practices employed by municipalities to reduce vulnerability and/or enhance resilience.

Researchers will share preliminary findings with state administrators and use the findings to conduct a survey of municipalities to assess how programs might be modified to better advance the state’s objectives to reduce vulnerability and/or enhance resilience. Researchers will also examine how the programs evolved over time to discern how the policies themselves were adapted to reflect new knowledge and feedback from coastal communities.

For More Information

General questions about NSGLC Competitions and the scope of projects considered should be directed to:

Stephanie Otts
Director of the National Sea Grant Law Center
sshowalt@olemiss.edu

General questions about the application process should be directed to:

Lauren Fremin
Project Coordinator for the National Sea Grant Law Center
lrfremin@olemiss.edu