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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 6
February 2006
Northeast Consortium calling for proposals
DURHAM, NH - The Northeast Consortium has put out its annual request for planning letters, the first step in its cooperative research funding process.
According to the announcement, the consortium expects to receive approximately $5 million from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to fund projects for fiscal year 2006.
Anyone can submit a planning letter, which should outline the basics of a project proposal – the goal, the technical approach of the research, key participants, and an idea of how much funding the project will need to go forward.
The planning letter deadline is April 11.
The Northeast Consortium was founded in 1999 on the idea that commercial fishermen can be important and effective partners in scientific research.
And the consortium is committed to achieving a balance of funding for cooperative research activities of 25 percent to science/research organizations and 75 percent to industry across all awards. People who submit planning letters are asked to design their projects and budget with this in mind.
Topic areas
While the intent of the consortium is to fund projects that address fisheries and ocean research and management issues in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank ecosystems, it does not identify specific kinds of projects as having high priority for funding, and it does not restrict proposals to any specific topics.
However, to give people a few ideas to get started, the planning letters announcement listed a number of research topic areas, including these:
• Selective fishing gear development to target healthy stocks, reduce bycatch and discard, reduce or eliminate technical barriers to trade, minimize harvest losses, reduce environmental impacts, and improve fishing practices;
• Survival and survivability studies of aquatic species “following fishing gear encounters” that estimate mortality rates from currently used fishing gear, or aim to improve bycatch survival;
• Closed area studies that examine environmental conditions, biodiversity, oceanographic processes, and fisheries recruitment within and around closed areas, as well as development and use of less invasive or nonfishing approaches for evaluation of closed areas;
• Ecosystem approaches to fishing and management studies that identify alternative or supplementary approaches to the analysis of species’ distribution and abundance, life history features, behavior, and dispersal, or the effects of oceanographic patterns and processes;
• Oceanographic and meteorological monitoring studies that gather information on weather, sea state, and oceanographic and fishing conditions, as well as the use of commercial fishing vessels as platforms for ocean monitoring, modeling, and prediction;
• Socioeconomic impact studies that lead to a better understanding of the effects of fisheries, coastal, and ocean management decisions and cooperative research on the fishing industry and fishing communities; and
• Outreach and education studies to enhance knowledge shared among fishermen, scientists, managers, and the general public.
More info
The Northeast Consortium is made up of four research institutions – University of New Hampshire (UNH), University of Maine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
Anyone who has questions, wants to discuss a project idea, or needs help writing a planning letter is encouraged to contact any consortium representative or staffer:
• Paul Anderson, Maine Sea Grant, phone (207) 581-1435 or e-mail <panderson@maine.edu>;
• Chrys Chryssostomidis, MIT Sea Grant, phone (617) 253-7131 or e-mail <chrys@mit.edu>;
• Peter Wiebe, WHOI, phone (508) 289-2313 or e-mail <pwiebe@whoi.edu>;
• Rollie Barnaby, New Hampshire Sea Grant Extension, phone (603) 679-5616 or e-mail <rollie.barnaby@unh.edu>;
• Troy Hartley, Northeast Consortium outreach director, phone (603) 862-1729 or e-mail <troy.hartley@unh.edu>;
• Chris Manning, Northeast Consortium oceanography specialist, phone (603) 862-4034 or e-mail <cam7@cisunix.unh.edu>; or
• Rachel Gallant, Northeast Consortium fisheries specialist, phone (603) 862-2276 or e-mail <rachel.gallant@unh.edu>.
The complete planning letter announcement and lots more information is available on the consortium web site at <www.northeastconsortium.org>.
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