Rhode Island Sea Grant Research and Outreach GoalsThis section identifies the main priorities and objectives for Rhode Island Sea Grant research and outreach for 2000 to 2005. These priorities should be assessed in relation to other NOAA strategic plans that also guide decision-making. Three are most important to Rhode Island Sea Grant: The NOAA Strategic Plan: A Vision for 2005 (May 1996), Sea Grant's Network Plan: 1995-2005 (November 1995), and the 1999 draft Strategic Plan for NOAA Research issued by the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. A Sea Grant program strategic plan should nest within these major strategic plans, building on and supplementing broad national goals and program topics. Rhode Island Sea Grant priority goals for research and outreach are: 1. Preserve, restore, and manage coastal and marine habitats and ecosystems. 2. Achieve sustainable seafood production. 3. Advance environmental technologies in support of Rhode Island’s marine economy. 4. Foster sustainable coastal communities through integrated coastal management. Program priorities correspond with the following priorities identified in Sea Grant’s Network Plan: 1995–2005:
Program priorities also correspond to priorities and principals established by The President's Council on Sustainable Development, The National Research Council, and the Coastal Futures 2025 vision established by the NOAA National Ocean Service. The major objectives that Rhode Island Sea Grant has derived for each of its major outreach and research goals are detailed below. Specific topics and issues are delineated and categorized to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration. Additional specifics will be provided in forthcoming implementation plans for each of the next two omnibus proposals. Meeting these priorities will enable Rhode Island Sea Grant, its partners, and Rhode Island to pioneer better means for enhancing and integrating the management of the nation’s coastal and marine environments. Preserve, Restore, and Manage Coastal and Marine Habitats and Ecosystems Since the 1970s, treatment of industrial and municipal wastewater point source discharges has steadily advanced via implementation of the federal Clean Water Act and state water pollution control laws and regulations. Rhode Island’s modernized water pollution control facilities have substantially reduced major pollutants, such as heavy metals, and biochemical oxygen demand in riverine, estuarine, and nearshore waterbodies. For example, the Narragansett Bay Commission pretreatment office reported that total metal discharges into upper Narragansett Bay from the Fields Point plant—the largest of five major wastewater treatment facilities in the Providence metropolitan region—totaled about 25,000 pounds in 1998, a 90 percent decrease in total metal discharges from Fields Point since 1981. Consequently, the habitat qualities of Rhode Island’s coastal waters have improved significantly for a variety of flora and fauna. Many observers have been encouraged by the return of substantial oyster populations in Narragansett Bay as a consequence of improving water quality. Commercial culturing and harvesting oysters in the Bay prospered through the 19th century and then collapsed due to economic and environmental reasons in the early 1900s. The RIDEM Council for Marine Fisheries states:
However, significant problems with habitat viability remain. For example, URI researchers have identified the presence of Dermo in Rhode Island oysters, a parasitic disease that has devastated oyster populations along the East Coast. Research reported by Marta Gomez-Chiarri, URI fisheries, animal, and veterinary sciences assistant professor, indicates that:
The work of Gomez-Chiarri and others reveals that yet-to-be-determined causal agents in oyster Bay habitats are significantly affecting oyster mortality rates. Another example of loss of habitat value is the fact that Bay eelgrass beds currently occupy a small fraction of their historical range. Up to 70 percent of historic Bay eelgrass beds have disappeared over the past half-century. Some researchers argue that the primary cause of eelgrass bed loss is the greatly increased flow of nitrogen-based nutrients into the Bay from both point and nonpoint source discharges. Whatever the causes may be, Rhode Island Sea Grant has and will continue to develop and support programs in eelgrass research and restoration. Finally, pathogen discharges from combined sewer overflows in the Providence area and from stormwater runoff throughout the Bay watershed lead to permanent and temporary shellfish bed closures, as well as numerous beach closures. Seasonal depletions of dissolved oxygen occur in embayments around the Bay, such as the Pawtuxet, Providence, Seekonk, Kickemuit, and Palmer rivers, as well as Greenwich Cove, Apponaug Cove, and Warwick Cove. RIDEM attributes these seasonal depletions primarily to eutrophication (RIDEM, 1998). Overall, despite significant investments in water pollution control over the past two decades, much remains to be accomplished. Great concern remains regarding our collective ability to protect and maintain the ecological integrity and socioeconomic values of the Rhode Island watersheds and coastal waters, particularly in light of current land development trends. In recent decades, computationally intense numerical models have been developed to understand physical, chemical, and biological components of coastal waterbodies. Computer models are now capable of emulating complex physical, chemical, and biological interactions within the water column and at benthic and sea surface boundaries, providing useful projections to managers of the impacts on water quality of different regulatory approaches, and identifying the kinds and quantity of data critical to the integrated management of coastal resources. As computer simulation techniques and programs have advanced, appreciation of their potential utility for government decision-making has grown. There is a growing demand for computer-based tools that can integrate massive, multi-faceted data sets and provide relevant predictive information to the policy process. Significant work remains to be done to increase the comprehensiveness and accuracy of computer models and better meet the needs of policy-makers and user groups. GSO researchers have been at the forefront of research in computer modeling utilizing Narragansett Bay. It is now possible to accurately model physical transport processes (currents, tides, waves, internal mixing) and the impact of these processes on the distribution of some pollutants. For example, researchers at the GSO, URI, and EPA developed a model to predict dissolved oxygen levels in the upper Bay. The study sought to define more precisely maximum acceptable loads of oxygen-demanding discharges from water pollution control facilities. The model’s output results indicated that algal respiration played a greater role in oxygen depletion than loads from treatment plants, underscoring the influence of eutrophicating processes on dissolved oxygen trends in the Bay water column and sediments. Support of computer-based modeling research will remain a priority for Rhode Island Sea Grant. Narragansett Bay is one of the most thoroughly studied estuarine systems in the world. The availability of long-term data sets and models for Narragansett Bay, and the ongoing efforts of oceanographers who have devoted their scientific careers to Bay study, create unprecedented opportunities to advance state-of-the-art estuarine monitoring and modeling science. Strategic Objectives Rhode Island Sea Grant sponsors research to delineate the linkages between land use practices, pollutant discharges, water quality, ecosystem functions, and coastal and nearshore habitat qualities. Rhode Island Sea Grant supports the development of better means to communicate information on such linkages to government officials, user groups, and the concerned public. Specific objectives in this priority area include:
Partners and Capabilities Rhode Island Sea Grant’s current and future projects in these areas offer extensive potential for collaboration due to the scope of issues involved and the importance of stakeholder involvement in management policy. With funding support from Rhode Island Sea Grant over the past 15 years, CRMC and CRC staff have developed and adopted special area management (SAM) plans to address the special management needs of vulnerable coastal waterbodies possessing critical habitat values. Continued refinement and implementation of these plans will help guide Rhode Island Sea Grant support for the relevant projects outlined above. The RIDEM Water Resources Division has recently been reorganized to integrate policy and permitting processes along watershed boundaries. The opportunity now exists to capitalize on the growing willingness to implement and institute the watershed management paradigm. The Sea Grant integrated coastal management initiatives on Aquidneck Island and in Washington County explicitly build upon the principles of watershed management. It is hoped that these initiatives will be seen as models by RIDEM and other government entities in expanding the watershed approach throughout the state. Linking land-use planning with coastal water quality management offers opportunities for Land Grant-Sea Grant partnering. Potential URI partners include researchers and outreach personnel in watershed science and management, aquatic ecosystems, and fisheries science. Other potential partners include other Northeast Sea Grant programs, RIDEM Fish, Wildlife, and Estuarine Resources Division, NMFS Habitat and Protected Resources Division, U.S. EPA Region I Office of Ecosystem Protection, U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, municipal planning boards, local land trusts, and nonprofit organizations. Achieve Sustainable Seafood Production Many marine fisheries scientists, commercial fishermen, and environmental activists agree that the state of marine fisheries in the northwest Atlantic and elsewhere are in a state of crisis. Over the next decade, a number of difficult but critical management goals must be met to ensure sustainable and economically viable marine fisheries for all New Englanders. Harvesting effort will have to be scaled down to promote the recovery of severely depleted commercial stocks. Management strategies—yet to be identified consensually—to address the overcapitalization of fishing fleets will need to be implemented. And government and industry decision-makers will have to develop equitable means for allocating the substantial economic hardships such management reforms will inevitably engender. Rhode Island Sea Grant will continue to provide unbiased scientific information to support regional fisheries planning and management for lobster, finfish, and shellfish. As an important example of the synergy between Rhode Island Sea Grant strategic goals in computer modeling and sustainable seafood production, the use of multi-species and ecosystem-based models of Northeast fisheries stocks will continue to be a priority research and outreach area. As Rhode Island commercial fishermen diversified into previously underutilized species such as squid, scup, butterfish, and mackerel, they developed new value-added products and markets. These responses to groundfish stock enabled the Rhode Island fleet to maintain acceptable landing rates and profitability. However, recent federal restrictions on groundfish harvesting (Amendment Seven to the New England Groundfish Management Plan, Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act) indirectly impact Rhode Island fishermen. Due to the stringent restrictions placed on harvesting groundfish stocks, vessels from neighboring states are targeting nontraditional species, and thus present new challenges to the Rhode Island seafood industry that Sea Grant is poised to address. The seafood processing and marketing sector faces many associated challenges to compete nationally and internationally. The development of new value-added products continues to be an important area of research. The safety and quality of seafood remains a critical issue of concern to the entire industry. The Hazard Analysis at Critical Control Points (HACCP) Program will continue to contribute to better seafood quality and safety, and continue to develop sanitation standard operating procedures for all seafood products. Fishing gear impacts on the physical characteristics of the ocean bottom and the associated flora and fauna is another area of concern to fisheries managers. The Sustainable Fisheries Act imposes new guidelines for reducing bycatch of depleted groundfish species, but disregard for bycatch quota systems will continue to negatively impact stock sizes. The capture of protected or endangered species is further restricted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. The design of selective fishing gear may provide a manageable solution to this problem. Improving gear selectivity or developing alternative management techniques will be needed to deal with these urgent issues. As an example, the lobster fishery has been reclassified as a fishery with significant interaction with marine mammals (Category 1). Information on encounter rate, gear modifications, and animal ecology and behavior are critically important to solve this problem, which threatens to place significant restrictions on one of Rhode Island’s most important marine fisheries. Other commercial fisheries in the state are also undergoing transitions similar to groundfish fisheries. Hard clam (quahog) stocks, once the most productive small-scale Bay fishery, have declined, along with winter and summer flounders. This has fueled state and regional interest in aquaculture. URI researchers are actively working on aquaculture techniques such as transient gear for shellfish culturing and land-based and ocean-based systems for finfish. For these fledgling industries to establish themselves, a number of issues will have to be addressed, including disposal of waste from recirculating systems, a coherent, equitable political and regulatory framework, variable market-based product valuations, diseases and parasites, and scaling up innovative culturing techniques. Although biological enhancement of marine fisheries is still an emerging science, habitat and stock enhancement/rehabilitation using aquaculture techniques is attracting significant attention in Rhode Island. The World Prodigy oil spill in 1989 and the North Cape oil spill in 1996 were assumed to have significant impacts on commercial and recreational stocks in Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. These potential impacts, which are still being assessed by fisheries scientists, highlighted the potential for wild stock enhancement techniques for remediation and mitigation programs in response to oil spills and other major polluting events. Recreational fishing and diving activities are expected to grow because of expanding tourism. Increased pressure on recreational fisheries has led to bag limits for individual fishermen and minimum size restrictions for most species. Although use of catch-and-release techniques has increased, unless these fish survive, there is no benefit to the resource. Previous studies by the Rhode Island and New York Sea Grant programs have demonstrated survival rates of greater than 90 percent for released fish if not gut- or gill-hooked and released properly. In light of this, Rhode Island Sea Grant intends to compile existing information concerning hooking mortality for valuable recreational fisheries, to integrate mortality projections into stock assessment models, and to reduce hook mortality rates through education. Efforts are also underway to improve the assessment of game fish stocks using tag/recapture models. The Rhode Island offshore sport fishery takes a variety of highly migratory pelagic species, including billfishes, tunas, and sharks. There is growing concern that these stocks are overexploited. The first step in improving the management of these stocks will be collecting better data on species identification and catch mortality rates. To this end, Rhode Island Sea Grant communications and Fisheries Extension staff are currently working cooperatively with the NMFS to produce a guide to pelagic fish identification, similar in design to the marine mammal and turtle guide published by Rhode Island Sea Grant in 1999. Also ongoing is an applied research project investigating the sensitivity of recreational fishery tag-recapture models to the input assumptions concerning the way that fish respond to the tags. Strategic Objectives Rhode Island Sea Grant works with fisheries scientists, managers, and industry to achieve the sustainable production of affordable and safe seafood products for consumers in Rhode Island and around the world. Specific objectives appropriate to the Rhode Island commercial and recreational fisheries include:
Partners and Capabilities URI offers substantial resources and expertise in fisheries and seafood sciences. In the College of Environmental and Life Sciences, researchers in the fisheries and aquaculture program in the fisheries, animal, and veterinary sciences department possess expertise in gear technology, fish behavior and selectivity, and land-based aquaculture systems. Researchers in environmental and resource economics work extensively in both marine fisheries management and the commercialization of aquaculture. The natural resources science department supports research and training for on-site wastewater treatment systems. Researchers in food science and nutrition are developing pizo-electric and fiber optic sensors for monitoring and enhancing seafood quality. In the College of Arts and Sciences, the marine affairs department possesses broad expertise in marine law, policy, and regulation. Researchers from the biological sciences department conduct research on the biology and ecology of marine organisms. Sociology and anthropology faculty have been studying the social impacts of fishery regulations. Researchers in political science have evaluated international fisheries management policies. Other research and education centers in Rhode Island make important contributions to marine fisheries management and aquaculture. The Roger Williams University Papitto School of Law specializes in Admiralty issues and works closely with the URI community planning department. Brown University has strengths in the ecological sciences and in civil and chemical engineering. Informal partnerships are currently in place with state and federal management agencies, such as the NMFS, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, RIDEM, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Industry partners include the Northeast Regional Aquaculture Consortium, the Rhode Island Aquaculture Association, the Rhode Island Seafood Council, fishermen’s organizations, and private companies. Aquaculture, stock enhancement, and other fisheries development strategies are supported by the R.I. Office of Strategic Planning in its Rhode Island Commercial Fisheries Economic Adjustment Strategy (1995). The Sea Grant Network Plan: 1995–2005 places seafood production in the category of “Economic Leadership” and recognizes the need for minimizing bycatch, enhancing wild stocks, developing sustainable aquaculture, and enhancing competitiveness of the seafood industry through product quality and safety and improved processing techniques. On a broader scale, in the most recent reauthorizations of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act, Congress has reaffirmed the importance of these fisheries issues as well as requiring the definition and protection of essential fish habitat for commercial fishing stocks. Finally, Kathleen Castro, Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Seafood Program coleader, has spearheaded the new URI Fish, Fisheries, and Aquaculture (FFA) Initiative, a university-wide effort to enhance URI’s already considerable abilities to conduct multidisciplinary research and education in fisheries science and aquaculture. Rhode Island Sea Grant will support this effort as a potentially powerful contributor to its own research and outreach efforts. Advance Marine Technologies In the 1970s, the National Science Foundation initiated the Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers Program, which currently includes more than 50 centers of study at universities nationwide. In 1993, Rhode Island initiated its third center, the OTC, with support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. In 1997, the OTC was designated a Slater Center by the state. Funding from the Slater Technology Fund is used by the OTC to support the Ocean Industry Grant Program and its expanded mission of marine technology commercialization. The OTC facility opened in 1998 on the URI Narragansett Bay Campus. The OTC encourages entrepreneurial enterprises, facilitates technology transfer, and nurtures young firms through a three-pronged, comprehensive program of research and development grants, marine enterprise loans, and business development initiatives. Its $1.6 million Marine Enterprise Development Program provides low-interest loans to startup companies. To date, the OTC has helped to launch three new Rhode Island companies, provided grant funding to seven companies, and provided loans to six others. As a result, the OTC has supported technology development projects in the fields of object-avoidance sonar, nutrient monitoring, marine electronics, ultra-lightweight yachting fixtures, and aquaculture. The OTC is starting a new program, the Ocean Technology Transfer Initiative, to foster collaborative research and development among the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), URI, and industry in navigation and sensor systems for autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles. Collaborating with OTC enables Rhode Island Sea Grant to expand beyond its traditional industry relationships in the seafood industry and develop projects in emerging marine environmental technologies. Environmental technologies nationally are considered an important area of economic development over the next 20 years. In addition to contributing to the overall economic well being of Rhode Island, collaboration with OTC will enhance Rhode Island Sea Grant contributions to sustainable development of coastal communities, where the marine trades are frequently located. Finally, Rhode Island Sea Grant will seek to develop with OTC National Sea Grant industrial fellowships with local companies involved in marine technology and aquaculture. Strategic Objectives Rhode Island Sea Grant supports development and commercialization of marine environmental technologies. Sea Grant will work to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and business opportunities in Rhode Island maritime and tourism industries, while promoting sustainable use of its coastal and marine resources. Specific objectives include efforts to:
Partners and Capabilities OTC represents a leading partner for Rhode Island Sea Grant in this strategic area. In collaboration with the OTC, Rhode Island Sea Grant will recruit applicants and sponsoring companies for the National Sea Grant Industrial Fellows Program. Substantial marine technology expertise and resources are present in Rhode Island via the NUWC in Newport, Raytheon Corporation facilities in Portsmouth, other naval defense contractors, and technology and consulting firms associated with the URI ocean engineering department. Additional partnerships are possible with researchers affiliated with the URI On-Site Treatment Training Program, an initiative to develop and certify alternative septic system technologies and to train municipal officials and contractors in their proper utilization and operation. Foster Sustainable Coastal Communities Defining “sustainable coastal community” in a precise, useful, and generally accepted manner remains a challenge. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that sustainability is an emergent beneficial property dependent on specific natural and human resources and systems inherent to a community or a region. It is possible to identify how social investments allow for better protection and management of discrete marine resources. Arguably, currently it is not possible to articulate to political leaders and the general public how their governments and businesses could invest directly in “resource sustainability.” Nevertheless, Rhode Island Sea Grant believes that there are several key management areas that will govern economic and environmental sustainability in Rhode Island coastal communities: land and water (both marine and fresh) use planning and management, marine recreation and tourism, marine transportation, and natural hazard mitigation. Marine recreation and tourism has emerged over the past decade as the major component of the state’s marine economy, surpassing commercial shipping and fishing. Marine trades associated with tourism and recreation are of critical economic importance in Rhode Island. Marinas, recreational fishing, and boat building, sales, and repairs experienced healthy recoveries in the 1990s. Tourism and travel in Rhode Island, which includes these industries, contributed over $2.5 billion to the Rhode Island economy in 1998. Marine transportation and port and harbor management are critical issues in Rhode Island. Quonset Point continues to be targeted as a possible site for a major container port facility. Newport has been working to expand its role as a destination for cruise ships. The Providence River Dredging Project currently in planning will help maintain and expand activities in the Port of Providence. NOAA and the state are about to initiate installation of a significant maritime navigation buoy system, known as PORTS—physical oceanographic real-time system. Many Rhode Islanders have expressed concern that development of a large container port or other port facilities at Quonset Point will diminish critical natural and socioeconomic resources upon which Rhode Island recreational and tourism industries depend. Many also question the economic viability of a large container port facility and the consequent need for taxpayer subsidies to keep such facility operations solvent once built. In 1999, Gov. Lincoln Almond and the Economic Development Corporation rejected a large container port facility proposal put forth by private developers. However, the governor reiterated his support in principle for development of a port facility at Quonset Point. Such a development may proceed in conjunction with efforts to develop a tourism and recreational facility at Quonset Point centered on the decommissioned naval aircraft carrier USS Saratoga. Of all current economic development trends in Rhode Island, development of a major new commercial port in Narragansett Bay presents the greatest potential to substantially alter the Bay’s ecological quality and patterns of human uses. What has been missing to date from public and private debates regarding the future of Quonset Point is the information and planning necessary to situate these continuing debates within the appropriate contexts of Narragansett Bay’s current environmental status and uses. As an impartial provider of scientific and technical information, Rhode Island Sea Grant can help to contextualize development decisions for the Bay and help Rhode Islanders achieve a balance of uses that preserves coastal resources and ecologies and contributes to the economic vitality of the state. Rhode Island Sea Grant recognizes that using integrated coastal management techniques to achieve sustainable coastal communities is an important strategic goal—as important as identifying and fulfilling critical gaps in our scientific understanding of coastal ecology. Sustainable coastal communities are not only about economic vitality and ecological abundance. They are also resilient in the face of natural hazards, large and small. The United States has endured natural disasters in the last 10 years amounting to billions of dollars of damage. Rhode Island has endured several major hurricanes since 1985. The most severe were Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and Hurricane Bob in 1991. Hurricane Bob alone caused over $61 million in economic losses in Rhode Island. Because shorefront communities in Rhode Island experienced marked growth in recent decades, at-risk populations have grown substantially. The Rhode Island salt pond region is particularly vulnerable to flooding, erosion, and related damages caused by coastal storms. Since the last major hurricane to directly strike the region, Hurricane Carol of 1954, the number of houses has tripled on the barrier spits and islands and low lying coastal plains adjacent to the salt ponds. In the late 1990s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began to couple comprehensive response programs with preventative actions to natural hazards in order to increase community resilience and speed recovery. The Rhode Island Sea Grant Coastal Management Extension team has been at the forefront of the new national model for natural hazard mitigation. They have conducted highly successful programs in natural hazard mitigation planning that placed Rhode Island in a leadership role among the states. Extension staff and the R.I. Emergency Management Agency (RIEMA) worked with FEMA and local officials to establish local and state natural hazard mitigation plans. Prior to these programs, there was no mechanism in Rhode Island for local and state agencies to work together in a proactive way to reduce damages and costs from natural disasters. The next steps require increasing awareness of, and involvement in, natural hazard mitigation by architects and builders, transportation planners, municipalities, and coastal scientists (physical oceanographers, engineers, geologists, economists, and maritime law analysts). As hazard mitigation plans are issued, federal, state, and municipal officials need to move into implementation through funding of infrastructure improvements and other programs. Strategic Objectives Recognizing that economic growth and environmental protection are inextricably linked, Rhode Island Sea Grant will undertake the following:
Partners and Capabilities The Coastal Management Extension team is predominantly composed of management experts at CRC. CRC’s U.S. programs emphasize partnering and management capacity-building as exemplified by the Aquidneck Island Partnership. Numerous federal and state programs are working toward reconciling coastal economic development with protecting coastal environments. The National Sea Grant College Program calls for research and outreach that promote alternative forms of economic development, improve coastal business management, reduce conflicts among users, and improve port and harbor planning and operation. These goals are also central to the Narragansett Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. Natural disaster preparedness intended to minimize the risks of property loss and threats to personal safety is a priority for federal agencies such as FEMA, the NOAA Office of Coastal Resource Management, Coastal Services Center, and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Program Plan Implementation During development of the biannual omnibus proposal, this program plan will serve as an important, but not exclusive, basis for funding decisions and program design. Implementation of Rhode Island Sea Grant strategic priorities occurs simultaneously in a variety of policy and science settings, and across short- and long-term time frames. Achieving the goals and objectives stipulated in this document also depends on the efforts and decisions of other academic and governmental institutions as well as the efforts of Rhode Island Sea Grant. Thus, it is exceedingly difficult to project how progress toward these goals and objectives will occur over the next five years. To provide greater flexibility to Rhode Island Sea Grant program managers, investigators, and outreach staff, implementation plans are to be developed for each biannual omnibus proposal. These plans will articulate implementation pathways and milestones for tracking achievement of outreach and research priorities. Assessments of milestone achievements and necessary corrections to implementation strategy should occur at least annually in conjunction with annual progress reports submitted for each funded project and the development of annual project budgets and workplans. The following sections briefly summarize the omnibus development process used by Rhode Island Sea Grant. This process is a central means by which funding and program design decisions are made at Rhode Island Sea Grant. Omnibus Proposal Development Development of the biannual omnibus proposal begins with issuance by Rhode Island Sea Grant of a Request for Research Proposals (RFP). The RFP identifies research and outreach priorities for the forthcoming omnibus proposal and is distributed widely throughout the marine community in Rhode Island, as well as to the other Northeast Sea Grant programs. Preproposals must be submitted in advance of full proposals. Preproposals submitted in response to the RFP will be evaluated based on their compatibility with the priorities identified in the RFP, the program plan, and relevant local, state, and federal coastal and marine priorities. If opportunities for collaboration among proposers become apparent from review of the preproposals, Rhode Island Sea Grant will strongly encourage communication between proposers in order to develop collaborative projects. Upon careful review by Rhode Island Sea Grant program staff, external advisors, and at least one independent technical review panel, a subset of the preproposals is invited to submit full proposals to Rhode Island Sea Grant. Those investigators whose preproposals are not invited for full submission may still submit a full proposal if they so choose. Full proposals are evaluated along a number of dimensions, including:
Each full proposal is evaluated by at least three independent peer reviewers who are based outside of Rhode Island. A technical review panel will examine and evaluate the proposals, their peer reviews, and any responses by the proposers to the peer reviews to judge overall quality and advise the Rhode Island Sea Grant director on which proposals should be incorporated into the omnibus proposal to be submitted to the NSGO. Based on technical review panel recommendations, the Rhode Island Sea Grant director, in consultation with the Sea Grant Senior Advisory Committee and other external advisors, will make the final decisions on which research proposals are to be included in the omnibus proposal. The director then must expeditiously notify the NSGO of his or her research funding decisions, document the rationale for these decisions, and subsequently notify all proposers of the decisions after final approval by the NSGO. Outreach program proposals developed by the outreach team leaders are also subjected to independent peer review. The individual outreach team proposals are combined and sent for review and comment to at least three Extension leaders associated with other Sea Grant programs, to each team’s advisory committee, and to other qualified peer reviewers as deemed necessary by the Rhode Island Sea Grant director and assistant director. Ongoing Program Management In addition, other program management decisions governed by the program plan include:
Program staff is responsible for monitoring and evaluating current projects. Annual progress reports from each project are submitted by May 1 for the previous year of work ending February 28. Personal interviews are conducted annually and the assistant director for programs is responsible for ensuring close, productive ties among Rhode Island Sea Grant–funded research and outreach projects and investigators. Detailed information on the purpose, methods, and accomplishments of each project will be assembled and entered into the Rhode Island Sea Grant Making a Difference relational database currently under development. Rhode Island Sea Grant staff will utilize this database to track and evaluate projects and provide program data and insight for external accountability reviews. |