Pooled Monitoring Initiative's Restoration Research Award Program

The Chesapeake Bay Trust and its funding partners, including the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program Office, Anne Arundel, Charles, Frederick, Harford, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, Baltimore City and the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, request proposals for research that answers key restoration questions that are barriers to watershed restoration project implementation. The programme supports the Pooled Monitoring Initiative, which connects stormwater and stream restoration questions posed by regulators and practitioners with researchers, and also funds research on pollutants of emerging concern, social science and restoration trade-offs. Funders aim to increase confidence in restoration outcomes, clarify the site conditions where particular techniques work best, use social science to bolster practice adoption, inform permitting and guide monitoring programmes; each year's top research questions are added to the RFP. Partners have allocated just over $1,988,000 to the programme; literature reviews are funded at up to $50,000 and research projects have no cap.

Not-for-profit entities (academic institutions and non-profit organizations) and for-profit entities may apply. Match is encouraged but not required. Applications are submitted through the Chesapeake Bay Trust online awards portal by 4 pm EST on the deadline.