Managing Sea Grant omnibus and program development grants

The following requirements for managing grants from Oregon Sea Grant (OSG) have been established by federal statute, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), or by Oregon State University (OSU), which houses OSG.

In addition to these requirements, you are also expected to follow your own university/college's established rules and regulations governing grant administration.

Researcher Resources

Budget Balances
The lead Principal Investigator (PI) is required to track the project budget. If expenditures create a negative balance in a budget category, please discuss it immediately with Oregon Sea Grant Research and Scholars Program Leader Sarah Kolesar (541-737-8695).

Allowable Costs
There are restrictions on how these grant funds can be used. If you have questions about what are allowable costs, please contact us, check the OSU Office for Sponsored Research and Award Administration (OSRAA) website, or contact the Contracts Office of your institution. Investigators and their institutions are reminded that expending federal or non-federal (cost-share) funds, or providing in-kind goods and services for the purposes of providing any expenses for any federal employee is expressly prohibited.

Travel
Travel expenses under this grant shall follow your institution’s or agency’s approved travel policies. You can access the OSU Travel and Expense Office here. In all cases, expenses shall not exceed and are capped at, the federal per diem rates. Check the per diem rates for Oregon State University and the GSA per diem rates.

International Travel and Fly America Restrictions
All international travel must be included in your approved proposal budget (including location, date of trip, estimated cost of airfare and per diem) and must be approved by OSG before you make travel arrangements. You will need to contact Sarah Kolesar to discuss the objective of the trip and submit an international travel request form to OSG. You must follow Fly America regulations. Please contact your accountant or OSG for Fly America policies and procedures. We recommend allowing at least 60 days for processing.

Equipment
All equipment purchases must be included in your approved proposal budget and must be approved by OSG prior to purchasing any unit or item of permanent equipment (equipment is generally defined as an article of non-expendable, tangible personal property, having a useful life of more than one year and an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more per unit; occasionally, the RFP or research sponsor may have a more restrictive definition). If the unit cost is in excess of $5,000, OSG must obtain prior approval for the purchase from NOAA. Any equipment request over $5,000 requires a lease-versus-purchase analysis as part of the procurement process. We recommend allowing at least 60 days for processing. Purchase of general-purpose equipment (any item that is usable for activities of the institution other than research) is generally not an allowable expense. Contact Sarah Kolesar to explore what options may be available.

Cost-Share/Matching Funds
OSG Cost Share Description
: Cost share is the project cost that does not come from Sea Grant but is contributed and committed to the project by the PI, Co-PIs, and partners. In other words, it is the funds, or effort, required to complete a particular project beyond what Sea Grant provides. Note, the terms “cost share” and “matching funds” often are used interchangeably. Federal law requires Oregon Sea Grant to provide a non-federal “match” of one dollar for each two dollars of Sea Grant funds received (although some grant opportunities through OSG may have different cost-share requirements). Please contact Sarah Kolesar with questions regarding cost share on individual projects.

For proposals, cost-share must be detailed in the project proposal budget worksheets and in the budget justification narrative. For OSU PIs, the source index of cost-share funds should be included when possible. Research projects that do not provide at least 50% non-federal match may not qualify for funding; please refer to the specific Request for Proposals for details, or contact Sarah Kolesar.

Typical/Common Sources of Cost Share:
Home institution - The most common sources of cost share for Oregon Sea Grant research projects are the PI and/or Co-PIs' salaries, fringe benefits and associated indirect costs (faculty effort at OSU is tracked through the OSU fiscal system). Additional items that may be considered include supplies, equipment and services that the PI’s institution purchases exclusively for the benefit of the project.

Third-Party Cost Share - In cases where a third party (a non-federal organization or company) is willing to provide time/effort, supplies, equipment and/or services to benefit the project, the value of these supplies, equipment or services may be included as cost-share. A letter confirming the commitment, with a statement of the value per year and a description of the contribution, must be included with the project proposal. This letter of commitment must also include the PI’s name and project title and be authorized by the third party. If funded, the PI is responsible for providing documentation from the third-party certifying the time/effort, supplies or equipment were provided, or services rendered, as part of the project’s documentation requirements.

Donated land, facilities or equipment must be valued at no more than fair market value at the time of donation. Donated services or supplies, such as use of boat time or a supply of fish, should be valued at the rate that would normally be charged to another user.

Uncommon, but Possible, Sources of Cost Share:
Volunteer services must be valued according to the type of service being provided (and not based on the position of the person volunteering), and the volunteer’s time must be documented and signed by the volunteer and volunteer coordinator.

Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) time may be used for cost-share if, and only if, that time is exclusively for the benefit of the project. This may occur, for example, when the GTA is creating curriculum or engaged in instruction as part of the education and outreach component of the project.

PI Responsibilities Regarding Cost Share:
Cost-share included in an awarded project is a contractual obligation that must be documented and met. Any unmet cost share at the end of the award period may lead to a reduction in the total amount awarded from Sea Grant. Cost-share expenses are auditable and must be verifiable from the partner’s organizational accounting records or similar source document. Cost-share for Sea Grant projects cannot come from federal funds and cannot represent contributions to other federally assisted projects. All cost share must be allowable, reasonable and necessary costs to support the project. In the event that any of the costs are disallowed, the PI is responsible for reimbursing Sea Grant for the costs. The project PI must institute processes to obtain, track, document, verify and approve cost-share commitments throughout the life of the award. The PI must report a third-party cost share directly to the OSG office annually. The OSU third-party cost-share form is here: Cost-Share from Outside Sources (PDF). We will work with PIs to report third-party cost-share to the Office of Sponsored Research and Award Administration (OSRAA). PIs must communicate and work with OSG on any revisions to cost-share that may be necessary during the course of the project.

Students
The current names and contact information for students involved with the project must be provided to OSG for reporting purposes within 60 days of the award or as soon as students are identified so that we can invite supported students to participate in Oregon Sea Grant Scholars activities. PIs should provide updates when students leave the project or graduate, and keep OSG informed of student employment and/or schooling for two years post-graduation, as required by the National Sea Grant Office.

Presentations
Please acknowledge Oregon Sea Grant's support when presentations are made. This visibility is increasingly important to us and a courtesy we take seriously. PIs must also keep track of the presentations given related to this project and the number of people at the presentation for reporting purposes; this includes presentations made by students on the projects. Please use the Oregon Sea Grant logo in presentations and other visual materials. Below are color and black and white logo file options.

Additionally, the NOAA emblem must be included in all digital and printed products funded by Sea Grant. This requirement applies to products that include websites, outreach materials and curricula. The NOAA emblem is not required on presentation slides about projects funded by Sea Grant, but its use is encouraged. If you need to obtain the NOAA emblem, please contact our communications manager.

There may be opportunities during your project for presentations at OSG-sponsored events. We will contact you directly with specific requests.

Publications
OSG expects that you will publish the progress and results of your Sea Grant-funded work through technical journals, proceedings, trade press, etc. OSG must receive a PDF of all publications resulting from this project. These materials will be submitted to NOAA's Institutional Repository and included in Oregon Sea Grant's online catalog, as appropriate. Please see the expanded guidance in the section below: "Publishing Work Supported by Oregon Sea Grant."

Patents
All potentially patentable ideas, inventions, discoveries or improvements made during the grant terms must be disclosed promptly to your institution’s grants administration office, which will be able to provide instructions. Researchers should also contact Sarah Kolesar (541-737-8695) to report the patent.

Data Management
Data and information collected and/or created under NOAA grants and cooperative agreements must be made visible, accessible, and independently understandable to general users, free of charge or at minimal cost, in a timely manner (typically no later than two years after the data are collected or created), except where limited by law, regulation, policy or security requirements. The requirement has two basic parts: (1) environmental data generated by a grant project must be made available after a reasonable period of exclusive use, and (2) the grant application must describe the plan to make the data available (Principal Investigators are expected to execute the plan).

If your project produces environmental data, it must conform to NOAA’s Data Sharing Directive for Grants, Cooperative Agreements, and Contracts. For detailed guidance, you can view the current version of the policy, including a definition of environmental data (which can include socioeconomic and model data). Download any updates and access additional implementation resources from the following permanent URL (Appendix B outlines requirements):

https://nosc.noaa.gov/EDMC/documents/Data_Sharing_Directive_v3.0.pdf. If a Data Management Plan (DMP) was included in your approved project proposal, the DMP must be followed. If you fail to share your data as you proposed in your DMP, you could be subject to a number of sanctions, including denial of future grant awards, freezing of funds in your current award, or in extreme cases even being forced to repay the grant award to the government. If you are unable to follow through with the DMP, contact Sarah Kolesar to explore what options may be available.

Reporting
Each project is required to submit interim progress reports (by request) and a technical completion report on the project's end date. These reports are required by NOAA, and Oregon Sea Grant has the responsibility of collecting the reports from PIs and submitting them to NOAA. Both Oregon Sea Grant and the individual PIs are evaluated on the basis of productivity, which in turn affects future funding. Report due dates are specified in your project Award Letter and Conditions. Please review the reporting template available on eSeaGrant (contact [email protected] to request access) to familiarize yourself with the information that needs to be collected to complete the report. Please note, however, that reporting requirements may change over time.

OSG reserves the right to withhold the project funds if appropriate documentation or required reports are not provided by program deadlines; the interim progress reports serve as the basis for Sea Grant’s decision regarding the continuation of a multi-year project into its next year. Furthermore, continued or new funding of any Sea Grant project with which you are affiliated may be withheld until previous, outstanding progress reporting requirements are fulfilled. In addition, a PI’s failure to provide timely reports on a previous or existing grant will be included among decision criteria when reviewing new grant requests with which the PI is associated.

OSG has an obligation to provide information to the public because projects are supported by federal and state funds. OSG responds to inquiries from the public and news media about the funding of your project with the project number, title of the project, total funding approved, dates/duration of the project and the principal investigator(s). We routinely provide public updates on the progress of funded projects through news releases, web articles, and updates, etc. In the case of a specific inquiry, we will notify you and, if appropriate, encourage the inquirer to contact you directly.

OSG Outreach and Engagement specialists may also contact you. We encourage you to assist them as much as possible in carrying out their outreach and engagement activities. We may also invite you to participate in workshops, seminars and other meetings conducted by the Oregon Sea Grant Program.

Budget Revisions, including Transferring Dollars among Categories
You must request and receive approval from OSG prior to executing any budget revision, including transfers among budget categories, or for contracting out any work, or sub-contracts, not specified in the grant application. Please note that budget changes are sometimes granted, but it is necessary for the PI to make a formal written request (an email will suffice) and provide clear justifications for the request. Some requests may require prior approval from NOAA as well; we recommend allowing 60 days for processing and response. Contact Sarah Kolesar for budget revision questions and requests.

Allowable Changes in the Involvement of Project Personnel
Major changes in personnel structure or project direction must be approved in advance by OSG and, in some instances, by NOAA. Items requiring approval include, but are not limited to, a change or relocation of principal investigator; sabbatical leaves for senior personnel, and substitution of graduate assistants with research associates. Prior approval is required for an absence of more than three months or a 25% reduction in time by the PI. Contact Sarah Kolesar for personnel revision questions and changes.

Allowable Changes in Project Methodology or Direction
We realize that you may be unlikely to conduct the funded research exactly as proposed. However, any major changes in the scope, objectives, approach or methodology for any element of the project also require prior approval. An example of a “major change” is a change in water quality sampling methodology from x to y, due to unexpectedly low stream flows during the expected sampling period – a change in methodology required to achieve project objectives, due to unforeseen circumstances beyond the study team’s control. A major change may also include unanticipated equipment needs. Note that some changes in project methodology or scope will also require related budget revision. Please make every effort to allow at least 90 days for adequate discussion and Oregon Sea Grant/NOAA approval before you might need to implement a change; 60 days is a minimum requirement. Contact Sarah Kolesar if you are not sure whether your proposed adjustment constitutes a "major" change, or to request a change in project methodology or direction.

Allowable Changes in Project End Date
If necessary, PIs may request a no-cost extension (NCE) of a maximum of one year. The primary considerations for the request are the justification for the extension and the proposed use and allocation of unexpended funds. Intent to request a NCE must be submitted by email at least 60 days prior to the project end date. An annual or status report should be submitted with the NCE request via eSeaGrant; contact [email protected] for access. All NCE requests and reports are due by the project end date. If your OSG project has a subaward, the NCE request and report may be required at least 60 days prior to the project end date.

Project- and budget-related questions: Sarah Kolesar (541-737-8695)

Additional information:

updated July 2018

Use these Oregon Sea Grant logos for your papers and presentations. Right-click on the image to save the file. If you have additional questions on the right logos to use, please contact the Oregon Sea Grant Communications Manager.

Black Oregon Sea Grant logo on a white background

Oregon Sea Grant logo on a green background

Green Oregon Sea Grant logo on a transparent background

Publishing Work Supported by Oregon Sea Grant

In 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum on Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research (often referred to as the Holdren memo). The policy required all federal agencies that had more than $100 million in annual research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the federal government. This includes any results published in peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are based on research that directly arises from federal funds. The administration laid out requirements for publications and data management and sharing that all agency plans must meet.

In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published the NOAA Plan for Increasing Public Access to Research Results in 2015, which detailed requirements for intra- and extramural researchers on data management. It also called for the creation of the NOAA Institutional Repository and the subsequent deposit of peer-reviewed journal articles into the system.

To further increase access, OSTP updated its policy guidance via a 2022 memorandum titled Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research (Nelson memo), which expanded the reach of the 2013 memo. The guidance required all agencies to update existing public access policies to accommodate new recommendations and requirements focusing on scientific integrity and transparency.

On this webpage, you’ll learn how Oregon Sea Grant can help you comply with this federal guidance regarding the publication and dissemination of work funded by Oregon Sea Grant. If you have questions, please contact our communications manager.

Oregon Sea Grant is required to submit your peer-reviewed journal articles to NOAA’s Institutional Repository so they can be included in the Sea Grant collection. The repository requires the manuscript version of a journal article. This version is often called the post-refereed, pre-publication manuscript. It is a draft of the manuscript after peer review but does not have publisher-added content such as pagination or logos. Here is an example.

Oregon Sea Grant is also required to submit other publications (besides peer-reviewed journal articles) to NOAA’s Institutional Repository for inclusion in the Sea Grant collection. Please consult the list of acceptable documents, which include conference proceedings, technical reports, handbooks, lesson plans, newsletters, books, theses and dissertations. Documents that the library will not accept include presentation slides and brochures.

You are required to send Oregon Sea Grant an accessible PDF of each thesis or dissertation supported under your project. See the Accessibility section below for details.

Please send any of the above content to our communications manager so it can be directed to the appropriate place, or include it with your annual or final report.

Please also submit theses and dissertations to your university’s scholarly archive (e.g., Oregon State University’s ScholarsArchive). Once uploaded, please share that link with our web manager so it can be added to the catalog on Oregon Sea Grant’s website.

If you have a publication forthcoming, please let our communications manager know so that we may coordinate a dissemination strategy with the journal and university communicators. We will respect any embargoes.

Certain publications must comply with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Journal articles (publisher versions and manuscript versions) do not have to be 508 compliant. All other publications must be 508 compliant, or the NOAA Institutional Repository will request revisions before accepting them into the Sea Grant collection.

At a minimum, this means that:

  • PDFs must be tagged
  • bookmarks must be used on documents over 20 pages
  • alternative text must be written for figures, photos, charts, maps and other graphics
  • the document must follow a logical reading order
  • title and language must be present in the document properties

If you are using graphic designers to lay out your document, please ask them to make it compliant with these accessibility requirements.

The following are some resources on 508 compliance:

Recognizing that open-access journals can have significant fees for publishing, Oregon Sea Grant can provide some financial support for publishing peer-reviewed papers resulting from Oregon Sea Grant-supported work. We will pay up to $3,000 per project to publish in an open-access journal. To obtain this financial assistance, the paper must be published within five years of completion of the project. This amount is typically enough to pay for one open-access publication. If your project generates more than one paper and you need funding, please contact the associate director for our research and scholars programs to see if additional money is available. You do not need to include in your grant proposal the cost of publishing in open-access journals if costs are anticipated to remain within the $3,000 allowance.

Where appropriate, we ask that you acknowledge Oregon Sea Grant’s support of your work. We provide the following suggested language:

This report was prepared by Oregon Sea Grant under award (grant) number ____________ (project number ____________) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program, U.S. Department of Commerce, and by appropriations made by the Oregon State Legislature. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these funders.

If some other agency or group has also supported the research, we provide the following suggested language:

This report was partially prepared by Oregon Sea Grant under award (grant) number ____________ (project number ____________) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program, U.S. Department of Commerce, and by appropriations made by the Oregon State Legislature. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these funders.

Following is a list of award (grant) numbers since 2014. Use the award (grant) number for the most recent year in which your Sea Grant research was supported.
2014-18 (FY14-18) NA14OAR4170064
2018-22 (FY18-22) NA18OAR4170072
2022-23 (FY22-23) NA22OAR4170102

Your project number, on the other hand, is the number assigned to your project in the original
institutional proposal (for example, R/BT-30). If you don’t know your project number, you can find this
on your award letter or you can contact our research and scholars coordinator.

Our communications team may be able to offer services for Oregon Sea Grant-supported researchers and students. Oregon Sea Grant’s communications budget can usually pay for contracting out graphic design, photography and videography work. However, we ask that you consult our communications manager if you would like to access these services. By reaching out to us before submitting your grant proposal, we can let you know if funds are indeed available, and if they are, we can earmark them for your project. We can also contact freelancers so they know to reserve time for your project in the future. Our team can:

  • Edit – or contract a professional to edit – content, such as outreach materials, that resulted from work Oregon Sea Grant funded. We edit to match your audience’s reading level. We do not edit theses, dissertations or manuscripts for journals.
  • Contract graphic designers to design outreach materials based on your Oregon Sea Grant-funded work. This excludes scholarly posters.
  • Contract photographers and videographers to help you fulfill the broader impacts in your grant proposal. We can share the photos on our Flickr page and upload the videos to our YouTube channel. We can also contract a third party to provide captions in English or another language.
  • Use our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts to create awareness about your research and its results.
  • Collaborate with you and our staff at the Hatfield Visitor Center at the Hatfield Marine Science Center to conceptualize and produce an exhibit. We can write and edit text, obtain photos and serve as a liaison between you and the graphic designer.
  • Pitch your journal articles as story ideas to communicators at your university. Your journal article, however, must not be older than three months.
  • Upload your scholarly publications and outreach materials to the catalog on Oregon Sea Grant’s website.
  • Provide estimates on rates freelancers typically charge for various projects.
  • Collaborate with you to identify goals, messages and audiences.
  • Offer suggestions regarding which communications tools could most effectively achieve those goals, convey those messages and reach those audiences.

We look forward to collaborating with you!

Updated May 2023