Project abstract summary now in its sixth decade, north carolina sea grant connues to facilitate, conduct and deliver responsive research, extension and outreach programming that addresses the short…

Project abstract summary now in its sixth decade, north carolina sea grant connues to facilitate, conduct and deliver responsive research, extension and outreach programming that addresses the short and long term idened needs of coastal north carolina, the region and naon. In alignment with north carolina sea grant's 20242027 strategic plan, this proposal reects the program's longstanding ability, commitment, and willingness to lead eorts to seek soluons to issues here in our state. Our programming directly addresses current, and future idened priories, based on internal experience and experse, external advisory board input, and regular stakeholder engagement across our coast and coastal watersheds. NC sea grant's program management includes talented individuals leading the program's extension, research, communicaons and scal teams, with strong integraon and engagement across the more than 25 team members and student interns. Team members are colocated with the program's host instuon, north carolina state university in raleigh, as well as at the university of north carolina wilmington's center for marine science in the southern coast area, NC state's center for marine science and technology in the central coast area of morehead, and nally in the northern coast at east carolina university's coastal studies instute in wanchese. NC sea grant seeks to increase overall program impacts through leveraged funding and strategic partnerships. Proposed eorts directly align with the four focus areas fully described in north carolina sea grant's 20242027 strategic plan: environmental literacy and workforce development, health coastal ecosystems, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and resilient communies and economies. These areas align directly with the NOAA sea grant strategic plan. The management, communicaons, extension, educaon and research projects described in this omnibus clearly embrace our collaborave approach to program execuon. The proposal provides crical investments in our team members, who provide the base of success in partnership development, research, extension and communicaon excellence. Projects and acvies described are at the intersecon of research, educaon and outreach, with individuals commied to ensuring work is translated to aconable informaon in support of the varied stakeholders invested in the state's coastal region. Compeve research projects focus on highpriority, OEN innovave, eorts that require not only experse from across the state's excellent public and private instuons but also a range of skills and capacity from community nonprot, industry, state government, and federal partners. The breadth and depth of proposed research, extension and outreach work ranges from individual community member support on sitespecic needs, to state and naonallevel collaboraons that address larger scale challenges and opportunies faced by our naon's coastal communies. NC sea grant's strong communicaon strategies and robust range of communicaon products ensure project ndings and program messages reach targeted audiences across the state, region and naon in both print and online media plaorms.