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.
2024-2027 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
