ACCSP Issues Request for FY2020 Proposals

May 6, 2019

The Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (Program or ACCSP) is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to Program Partners and Committees for FY20 funding.

ACCSP’s Funding Decision Document (FDD) provides an overview of the funding decision process, guidance for preparing and submitting proposals, and information on funding recipients’ post-award responsibilities. Projects in areas not specifically addressed in the FDD may still be considered for funding if they help achieve Program goals. These goals, listed by priority, are improvements in:

     1 a. Catch, effort, and landings data (including licensing, permit and vessel registration data);

        b. Biological data (equal to 1a.);

     2 Releases, discards and protected species data; and,

     3 Economic and sociological data.

Project activities that will be considered according to priority may include:

  • Partner implementation of data collection programs;
  • Continuation of current Program-funded partner programs;
  • Funding for personnel required to implement Program related projects/proposals; and
  • Data management system upgrades or establishment of partner data feeds to the Data Warehouse and/or Standard Atlantic Fisheries Information System.

Proposals for biological sampling should target priority species in the top quartile (Attachment II) of the Biological Priority Matrix. Proposals for observer coverage should align with fisheries affecting the top quartile priority species (Attachment III) of the Bycatch Priority Matrix. Brief descriptions of the current levels of biological or bycatch sampling by any of the Partners would be helpful to the review process. Projects for recreational catch and effort data should target the priorities set by the Recreational Technical Committee (Attachment IV).

Proposals to continue Program-funded partner projects (“maintenance proposals”) may not contain significant changes in scope (for example the addition of bycatch data collection to a dealer reporting project), and must include in the cover letter whether there are any changes in the current proposal from prior years’ and, if so, provide a brief summary of those changes.

Additionally, in FY16 a long-term funding strategy policy was instituted to limit the duration of maintenance projects. Maintenance projects are now subject to a funding reduction following their fourth year of maintenance funding. For maintenance projects entering year 5 in FY20,  a 33 percent funding cut (up to 33 percent for multi-agency proposals) will applied to whichever sum is larger: the project’s prior two-year-average base funding as defined in FY16, or the average annual sum received during the project’s subsequent four years of full maintenance funding. In year 6, a further 33 percent cut will be applied and funding will cease in year 7.  See Appendix A of the FDD for a list of those maintenance projects entering year 5 and the maximum funding available to them for years 5 and 6.

All project submissions must comply with the Program Standards found here. Please consider using this successful project proposal as a template. Overhead rates may not exceed 25% of total costs unless mandated by law or policy. Items included within overhead should not also be listed as in-kind match.

Submissions will be reviewed in accordance with the FDD (Attachment I), ranking criteria (Attachment VI), and funding allocation. Current funding allocation guidelines are 75% for maintenance projects and 25% for new projects within the Program priorities.

Attachment V provides a timeline for the FY20 funding process. The final decision on proposals to be funded for FY20 will be made in October 2019. Project awards will be subject to funding availability and, if there is a funding shortfall, awards may be adjusted in accordance with the FDD. Successful applicants will be notified when funding becomes available.

Project Investigators will be required to report progress directly to the Program’s Operations and Advisory Committees in addition to meeting the standard Federal reporting requirements.

Please submit initial proposals as Microsoft Word and Excel files no later than June 10, 2019 by email to info@accsp.org. If you have any questions about the funding decision process, please contact your agency’s Operations Committee member (https://www.accsp.org/committees) or ACCSP staff (703-842-0780).

RELEVANT ATTACHMENTS can be found here.