American Lobster Research Program

Funding Opportunity Number: NOAA-OAR-SG-2022-2007241

The NOAA National Sea Grant Office will host a webinar on Thursday, April 14, 2022 from 12:00-1:00pm ET to provide an overview of the 2022 American Lobster Research Program Funding Opportunity and its application process. The webinar will include a presentation, and provide an opportunity to ask questions that individuals may have about applying to the announcement. Please register in advance.

Research Priorities

The priorities of this funding opportunity are to support projects with a geographic focus on the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and/or southern New England and which address one or more of the following: 

(1) Development and operationalization of gear technologies, including sub-sea gear location that help industry comply with the requirements set forth in the final 2021 rule (FR–210827–0171) to modify the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP). 

(2) Socio-technological or socio-economic research to understand the social, economic, and technological opportunities and/or barriers associated with bringing gear technology to commercial scale in the lobster fishery. 

Sea Grant anticipates having up to $2 million dollars to fund a diversity of projects with funding requests ranging from $50k-$750k in FY22. Projects may be one or two years in duration with a maximum of two years. 

The American Lobster Research Program is part of Sea Grant’s American Lobster Initiative and is a competition run by NOAA’s National Sea Grant Office, not the Lobster Regional Extension Program. Information about the competition can be found here and on grants.gov. Questions about the competition should be sent to oar.hq.sg.competitions@noaa.gov.