Pollock Conservation Cooperative Research Center
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Announcement of Availability of Funds for 2007
PROPOSALS DUE: Thursday, October 12, 2006 by 5:00 pm AST
The Pollock Conservation Cooperative Research Center ( PCC Research Center) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks announces an opportunity for funding of marine research in the North Pacific ocean and Bering Sea. Proposals, including an original with all required institutional signatures, 10 copies, and an electronic file, must be received by 5:00 pm AST, October 12, 2006. Send the electronic format proposal (MS Word or PDF) to carter@sfos.uaf.edu, or with proposal hard copies to:
Pollock Conservation Cooperative Research Center
School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences
University of Alaska Fairbanks
P. O. Box 757220
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7220
Submitters will be notified upon receipt of proposals. Start date of the proposal is to be set no earlier than April 1, 2007. Awarding will be made on a yearly basis but faculty are encouraged to submit a multi-year budget based on project needs. Award decisions will be made by February 15, 2007.
Funding for the PCC Research Center is provided by members of the Pollock Conservation Cooperative (PCC), a fishing cooperative of companies that operate catcher/processors in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands pollock fishery: Alaska Ocean Seafood, LP; American Seafoods Company, LLC; Arctic Storm, Inc.; Glacier Fish Company, LLC; Highland Light Seafoods, LLC; Starbound, LLC; Trident Seafoods Corporation. For the 2007 funding cycle, the Center has a total of $285,000 available for projects.
The PCC Research Center was established in February 2000 and seeks to improve knowledge about the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea through research and education, focusing on the commercial fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. The Center provides:
(1) grants to faculty and research stipends to graduate students for research on pollock, other groundfish species, the fisheries for these species, and on marine mammals;
(2) funding for marine education, technical training, and equipment; and
(3) funding for research in the area of marine resource economics.
While proposals in any of the above areas will be accepted, the PCC Research Center annually identifies subjects of particular interest and gives the highest consideration to proposals within these areas.
PCCRC Research Priorities for 2007
For the 2007 funding cycle, the PCC Research Center is especially interested in trying to improve knowledge through research and education relating to:
- The sustainability of the northern fur seals and recovery of Steller sea lion populations, and identification of factors influencing their population dynamics, especially a) a literature review of studies assessing environmental conditions and other factors that may be affecting northern fur seals in the North Pacific, b) coincidental timing of the upturn of the Steller sea lion Western distinct population segment (DPS) trends that may be due to cessation of shooting, regime shifts, implementation of fishery mitigation measures, or other factors; and c) assessment of the feasibility of adaptive management experiments to test the efficacy of Steller sea lion mitigation measures, including non-traditional modeling methods such as those described in the Wolf and Mengel paper on this issue (MRAG Americas, Inc., “Understanding the Decline of the Western Steller Sea Lion: Assessing the Evidence Concerning Multiple Hypotheses,” NOAA Fisheries, Alaska Fisheries Science Center #AB133F-02-CN-0085, 2005) http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Steller%20final.pdf
- a) Natural impacts to the Bering Sea seafloor, such as benthic feeding by marine mammals and intense wave actions, and b) a detailed plan and methodology for the benthic mapping of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (shelf and slope mapping as opposed to deep basin), including in particular the development and/or evaluation of cost-efficient methods for large area mapping of fish habitats, and also including utilization of traditional ecological knowledge of fishermen;
- Improvements in fishery stock assessment models, sampling methods and surveys, and management measures, particularly with regard to:
- research which explores a range of management options to protect rockfish from potential overfishing (proposals may advance methods to identify rockfish refugia and habitat areas of particular concern; to better estimate rockfish biomass, and/or other research and management strategies with the potential to safeguard target and non-target rockfish species); and
- the assessment of important non-target species stocks (e.g., large sharks, skates, and squids) and the assignment of species to stock assemblages;
- Alaska pollock stock dynamics, including: (a) fisheries interactions and the concept of localized depletions; (b) general environmental factors affecting pollock stocks (including impacts of global warming on stock abundance, relationship of primary and secondary production levels and pollock recruitment, temperature changes as they relate to roe maturation, etc.); (c) assessment of the interrelationship (if any) between the pollock fishery in Russian waters and the status of pollock stocks in the Eastern Bering Sea; (d) development of a forum to facilitate the exchange of improved scientific data between Russian and U.S. scientists;
- Initiating a project utilizing graduate students or postdoctoral fellows to work with NMFS scientists on pollock stock assessment modeling at Auke Bay Laboratory and/or the Alaska Fisheries Science Center;
- Comparing and contrasting the working relationships between the fishing and university communities in other countries (e.g. New Zealand, Norway, Japan);
- Analyses of the nutritional characteristics of Alaska pollock, and how those characteristics vary by product form and processing strategy;
- Analyses of the determinants of ex-vessel, wholesale, international, and retail demands for the diverse products derived from Alaska pollock, including (a) econometric models that incorporate information about inventories and domestic and international supplies and demands and (b) interviews with industry representatives to reconstruct the history of patterns of trade in pollock and to understand the reasons behind those patterns as a basis for understanding the current patterns of trade and likely future directions.
- Analyses of the economic consequences of MSC certification, the potential consequences of MSC certification in competing fisheries, and the role of retailer demand as a driver for the development and documentation of credence attributes.
Proposal Review Process
Proposals to the Center will be peer reviewed, then prioritized by a seven-member Advisory Board, which is comprised of three members representing the PCC, one member representing fisheries management agencies, and three members representing the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The Dean of the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences reviews the PCC Research Center Advisory Board recommendations and selects the projects to be funded. The PCC Research Center welcomes projects with funding from multiple sources.
Program Reporting Requirements
Annual progress reports and a final report will be required of all projects, in electronic format, in MS Word and PDF. Final reports must be accepted by the Dean of the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and must be submitted no less than 15 days prior to the end of the project. All principal investigators will be required to present research updates at a January PCC Research Center Advisory Board meeting in Alaska. PI’s may also be asked to present reports at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium held in Anchorage concurrently with the Advisory Board meeting. Failure to meet reporting requirements in a timely manner may result in withheld reimbursements.
Proposal Content
One principal investigator on each project must be a faculty member or staff member of the University of Alaska, who must participate significantly in the project. Proposals must be submitted through the University of Alaska. Proposals are limited to 15 pages with 1-inch margins (minimum) and type size no smaller than 10 point. All sections listed below except References, Cover, and CVs (and figures) are to be included in the 15-page limit:
- Cover with Original Signatures
- Abstract
- Background and relevance to research priorities
- Objectives/Hypotheses
- Methods/Analyses
- References
- Timeline including work schedule and reporting deadlines
- Short description of results of previous work funded by the PCCRC
- Curriculum vitae for each principal investigator (limited to 2 pages each)
- Budget justification/Summary
- Budget including personnel, travel (include costs for annual presentations), services, supplies, equipment (items above $5000), graduate tuition, and subawards (All subawards to UAF need to provide:
1. Budget and budget justification
2. Statement of work
3. Letter from organization’s AOR (not investigator) acknowledging commitment to the project)
Special Considerations:
- PCC Research Center awards cannot support indirect (F&A) costs.
- PCC Research Center awards are contingent upon evidence of UAF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) authorization or Human Subjects Application (IRB) approval where appropriate.
For further information about this request for proposals, please contact Kathy Carter at the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at 907-474-1811 or carter@sfos.uaf.edu.
Contact PCCRC
Denis Wiesenburg, PCCRC Director
School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences
University of Alaska Fairbanks
P.O. Box 757220
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7220
Phone: (907) 474-7210
Fax: (907) 474-7204
Email: wiesenburg@sfos.uaf.edu