<style>/*! elementor - v3.5.5 - 03-02-2022 */
.elementor-heading-title{padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title[class*=elementor-size-]>a{color:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-small{font-size:15px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-medium{font-size:19px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-large{font-size:29px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xl{font-size:39px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xxl{font-size:59px}</style><h2>$1M Collaborative Research Challenge</h2>		
			<h1>rural coastal adaptation & resilience</h1>		
			<h2>FUNDING ANNOUNCEMENT</h2>		
			<h2>SUMMARY</h2>		
		<p>Virginia Sea Grant (VASG) is pleased to announce the availability of <b>$1M</b> for collaborative research on water adaptation and resilience-enhancing innovations. Leveraging funding from <b>GO Virginia</b> and VASG’s federal funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we anticipate making approximately five awards. University teams will provide collaborative R&amp;D support (e.g., assessing the impact of adaptation and resilience interventions on coastal properties, product performance validation, product development) to business winners of an ongoing GO Virginia-funded coastal rural <strong>Resilience Challenge</strong> announcement concerning: <strong>Flood Management; Protection of Buildings and Property; and Water Quality Management.</strong></p><p><b><i>Important dates:</i></b></p><ul><li>Submit Statement of Interests &amp; Qualifications: <b>March 31, 2022</b> </li><li>Requests for additional information in order to match university capacity with business and water adaptation, resilience and innovation needs: <strong>April, 2022</strong></li><li>Submit requested information: <strong>late April/early May, 2022</strong></li><li>Project start dates: <strong>summer/fall, 2022</strong></li></ul><p><b><i>For more information :<br /></i></b>Contact Sabine Rogers, <b>sarogers@vaseasgrant.org</b>, or Troy Hartley, <b>thartley@vaseagrant.org. </b></p>		
			<h2><b>LEARN MORE:</b> INFORMATIONAL WEBINARS</h2>		
		<p>Virginia Sea Grant will host three webinars to present the funding opportunity, information about the waterfront property field stations, answer questions, and to solicit information about expanding Virginia’s collaborative R&amp;D capacity in water adaptation and resilience. In addition to the $1M for universities to participate in collaborative R&amp;D, VASG has funding to further scope and design the codification of the field stations into an R&amp;D network and the design of a collaborative R&amp;D hub facility in the coastal region. To further assess university needs and opportunities with this capacity, Clark Nexsen is assisting in the scoping exercise and the webinars. Dates for the webinars are:</p>		
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			<h2>February 21, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM</h2>		
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			<h2>March 2, 10:00 AM - 12:00 NOON</h2>		
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			<h2>March 15, 10:00 AM - 12:00 NOON</h2>		
			<h3>Businesses will design and build or implement their products, services and other innovative approaches to enhance resilience on the publicly-owned, waterfront properties on the PAA. Universities will be conducting their collaborative research with the private sector on these properties.</h3>		
			<h2>HOW TO APPLY</h2>		
		<p><em><strong>Submit Statement of Interests &amp; Qualifications<br /></strong></em>By March 31, 2022 at 11:59 PM, upload and submit a statement of interests and qualifications as a single PDF, through your eSeaGrant account. There is no limit to the number of Statements an individual nor an institution can submit.</p><ol><li>Create an eSeaGrant account at <strong><a href="http://vaseagrant.ecsion.com">http://vaseagrant.ecsion.com</a></strong>. We strongly encourage you to create an eSeaGrant account several days prior to the deadline in order to trouble-shoot any problems with VASG staff and ensure smooth upload of the Statement of Interests &amp; Qualifications.</li><li>On the website, select the “Register” tab, and completing the required information – name, affiliation, email address.</li><li>If you do not receive a “welcome” email with login credentials shortly after creating an account, please check your junk mail folder. You can contact Sam Lake at VASG (<a href="mailto:sjlake@vaseagrant.org"><strong>sjlake@vaseagrant.org</strong></a>), if you have not received an email.</li></ol>		
			<h2>Water Adaptation Industry Cluster & Innovation Ecosystem</h2>		
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			<h1>Advancing Feasible Adaptation Solutions</h1>		
		<p>To achieve this vision, several projects are underway through collaborations among multiple partners, including:</p><h4><strong>Supporting Entrepreneurs</strong></h4><ul><li><strong>GO Virginia:</strong> The Coastal Resilience and Adaptation Economy initiative that will foster innovation and growth in Virginia’s water economy. The project will launch a resilience entrepreneurship competition and establish a business-focused network to engage businesses and facilitate resilient practices. The project is a collaboration between <strong><a href="http://vaseagrant.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virginia Sea Grant</a></strong>, the nonprofit<strong> <a href="https://riseresilience.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RISE</a></strong>, the <strong><a href="https://www.mppdc.com/index.php/service-centers/coastal/paa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority</a></strong>, and <strong><a href="https://odu.edu/">Old Dominion University</a></strong>. The $2.9M project was funded in part by <strong><a href="https://govirginia.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GO Virginia</a></strong>, a state-funded initiative administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to strengthen and diversify Virginia’s economy and foster the creation of higher-wage jobs in strategic industries.  In addition to the workforce development supported by VASG and RISE’s business plan competition, ODU is leading the development of the <strong><a href="https://www.odu.edu/news/2021/1/flood_preparedness#.YdRvYBPMJqs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coastal Virginia Consortium.</a></strong>  </li><li>The Middle Peninsula’s <strong><a href="https://fightthefloodva.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fight-the-Flood (FTF)</a> </strong>program to subsidize shoreline protection businesses’ work on coastal properties. FTF is a first in the nation approach to advance feasible adaption solutions for property owners in underserved communities.  Among the twenty-four companies in the FTF program, there are cooperative arrangements, collaborative projects, and a need for research &amp; development (R&amp;D) capacity to further advance innovation.</li></ul><h4><strong>Collaborative R&amp;D</strong></h4><p>Addressing property adaptation from a holistic, systems approach in order to achieve novel breakthroughs requires collaborative skills and competencies to integrate diverse knowledge and perspectives into innovative outcomes that transcend individual disciplines.</p><ul><li><strong>VASG—Virginia Tech</strong> partnership for a resilience design extension faculty position. This position will play a critical role, as a project coordinator and facilitator, of VASG’s GO Virginia award, and the design and implementation of collaborative public-private R&amp;D partnerships on the network of field stations.</li><li><strong>Sea Grant-CERF</strong> (Coastal Estuarine Research Federation) <strong><a href="https://cerfcompetition.vaseagrant.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Design Competition</a></strong>, a forward-facing initiative to inspire students and faculty across disciplines to work together in proposing design solutions and innovative strategies to make our coastal environments more resilient in the face of coastal impacts of climate change. The Design Competition is also intended as a complementary way in which CERF can collaborate with local communities to problem-solve together around pressing challenges. The Design Competition will focus on a specific site in Coastal Virginia on which all design proposals must focus.</li><li><strong>VASG’s NSF-funded team science training</strong> is designing, testing, and implementing capacity-building training for effective team science, effectively integrating diverse knowledge and perspectives. The deeper level of knowledge integration achieves innovative outcomes, and is facilitated by <strong><a href="https://vaseagrant.org/nsf-award-team-science-training-coastal-ocean-estuarine-stem-graduate-students/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VASG’s training</a></strong> in visualization tactics, managing constructive conflict, effective cross-disciplinary communication and listening, and advanced taskwork and teamwork skills.<strong style="font-size: 16px;"> </strong></li></ul><h4><strong>Workforce Development</strong></h4><p>Collectively, Virginia’s community college system, universities, and professional certification programs provide outstanding discipline-specific and skill-focused education.</p><ul><li><strong>VASG and <a href="https://www.rappahannock.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rappahannock Community College</a></strong> are offering Work-Based Learning apprenticeships with water resilience and adaptation businesses, including winners of the GO Virginia business competition administered by RISE. Coupled with professional certification programs supported by non-profits and university entrepreneurship training, technician-level training and partnerships with businesses can form the backbone of the emerging water adaptation industry cluster’s workforce.</li><li><strong><a href="https://wetlandswatch.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wetlands Watch</a></strong>, <strong><a href="https://vaseagrant.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virginia Sea Grant</a></strong>, and the <strong><a href="http://www.usgbc.org/usgbc-hampton-roads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Green Building Council, Hampton Roads Chapter</a></strong> have joined forces to establish an adaptation research and design collaborative, linking research and education programs at Virginia universities with local governments to help implement resilient interventions. This collaborative resilience laboratory - or <strong><a href="https://wetlandswatch.org/design-collaboratory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Collaboratory"</a></strong> - aims to produce innovative adaptation tools, strategies, and designs in tidewater Virginia by linking academic community programs with real-world needs in coastal communities, helping speed adaptation, and incubating a community of practice.</li></ul>		
			<h2>Upgrading Virginia's Water Adaptation Workforce</h2>		
		<p>Addressing property adaptation from a holistic, systems approach requires collaborative skills and competencies to integrate diverse knowledge and perspectives into novel, innovative outcomes. Collectively, Virginia’s community college system, universities, and professional certification programs provide outstanding discipline-specific or skill-focused education. However, collaborative teamwork skills are less prevalent; e.g., architectural and engineering firms have partnered with VASG to co-sponsor workforce development initiatives in part to advance students’ teamwork, collaboration, and knowledge integration skills. Coupled with entrepreneurship, design thinking, and other creativity- and innovation-deriving curricula, Virginia could have the best-trained workforce for the emerging water adaptation economy. Options would include:</p><ul><li><strong>Offering <em>community college</em> Work-Based Learning, apprenticeships, and, as appropriate, associate degrees or certifications for technician-level training and partnerships with businesses.</strong></li><li><strong>Support for university <em>undergraduate and graduate</em> work on adaptation R&amp;D, including entrepreneurship training to accompany technical expertise and collaborative research with industry partners, p</strong><strong>roduct performance validation, and co-production of new knowledge.</strong></li><li><strong>Support for NGOs conducting certification training</strong></li></ul>