The ultimate goal of the usvi NASA-epscor program is to secure and grow funding from outside of the NASA epscor program to continue to develop research and education activities in the usvi in areas of…

This federal contract award is a $222,930.26 Cooperative Agreement between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to support the U.S. Virgin Islands NASA-EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) program. The goal of this project is to secure and grow funding from outside of the NASA EPSCoR program to continue developing research and education activities in the U.S. Virgin Islands in areas of technical and strategic interest to NASA, supporting economic growth in the territory. The award will provide administrative support to maintain existing active grants and add capacity for additional grants to UVI faculty. It will also fund an annual series of competitive jurisdictional grants to encourage new avenues of research leading to larger, externally funded future projects. This contract does not utilize any set-aside designations, indicating UVI's competitiveness in open contract competitions. The University of the Virgin Islands, as the sole institution of higher education in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has a strong history of federal grant awards supporting its research, STEM education, and economic development initiatives in the Caribbean region.

The ultimate goal of the usvi NASA-epscor program is to secure and grow funding from outside of the NASA epscor program to continue to develop research and education activities in the usvi in areas of technical and strategic interest to NASA, and that support economic growth in the usvi. To reach this goal, this project will provide the necessary administrative support to maintain existing active grants while adding capacity to accommodate additional grants provided to usvi faculty both by this project itself, and by the intended extension of current and future grant activities to larger projects and projects with higher levels of non-epscor funding. This project will also provide an annual series of competitive jurisdictional grants designed to encourage and support new avenues of research that will ultimately lead to larger, externally funded future projects.