NOAA-NWS-NWSPO-2018-2005317 Full Announcement.pdf

Round 3 of Research to Operations Initiative: NOAA Testbeds

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Funding Opportunity Description 4

A. Program Objective 4 B. Program Priorities 6 C. Program Authority 9

II. Award Information 9 A. Funding Availability 9 B. Project/Award Period 9 C. Type of Funding Instrument 10

III. Eligibility Information 11 A. Eligible Applicants 11 B. Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement 12 C. Other Criteria that Affect Eligibility 12

IV. Application and Submission Information 12 A. Address to Request Application Package 12 B. Content and Form of Application 13 C. Unique Entity Identifier and System for Award Management (SAM) 15 D. Submission Dates and Times 16 E. Intergovernmental Review 16 F. Funding Restrictions 16 G. Other Submission Requirements 17

V. Application Review Information 17 A. Evaluation Criteria 17 B. Review and Selection Process 18 C. Selection Factors 18 D. Anticipated Announcement and Award Dates 19

VI. Award Administration Information 19 A. Award Notices 19 B. Administrative and National Policy Requirements 19 C. Reporting 23

VII. Agency Contacts 23 VIII. Other Information 23

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 1 of 23

ANNOUNCEMENT OF FEDERAL FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Federal Agency Name(s): National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce

Funding Opportunity Title: Round 3 of Research to Operations Initiative: NOAA Testbeds

Announcement Type: Initial

Funding Opportunity Number: NOAA-NWS-NWSPO-2018-2005317

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 11.468, Applied Meteorological Research

Dates: Letters of Intent (LOI) are required for this announcement. LOI's summarizing anticipated yearly budget, project scope and NOAA testbeds and/or proving grounds partners must be received by 5:00 PM EST on December 13, 2017. LOI's should be submitted by email to christopher.hedge@noaa.gov.

Full application packages must be received by www.grants.gov no later than 5:00 PM EST February 7, 2018. Please note: Validation or rejection of your application by grants.gov may take up to 2 business days after submission. Please consider this process in developing your submission timeline.

Expected project start date is September 1, 2018.

Funding Opportunity Description: This program announcement is for projects to be conducted for a two-year period with an anticipated start date of September 1, 2018 unless otherwise directed. All public or private sources may submit to this Federal Funding Opportunity;

however, partnering with universities is highly encouraged. Eligible applicants are institutions of higher education; other nonprofits; commercial organizations; state, local and Indian tribal governments; and Federal agencies.

Applicants for this opportunity must work in partnership with NOAA testbeds and proving grounds (listed under www.testbeds.noaa.gov). NOAA's testbeds and proving grounds facilitate the orderly transition of research capabilities to operational implementation through development testing in testbeds, and pre-deployment testing and operational readiness/suitability evaluation in operational proving grounds.

The purpose of the NOAA Research to Operations (R2O) Initiative is to expand and accelerate critical weather forecasting research to operations to address growing service demands and increase the accuracy of weather forecasts. This will be achieved through: (1) accelerated development and implementation of improved global weather prediction models and inclusion of the coupling among atmosphere, ocean, land surface and ice system components; (2) improved

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 2 of 23 data assimilation techniques; (3) nested regional prediction capabilities; (4) improved hurricane and tropical cyclone modeling techniques; (5) improved ensemble techniques; (6) post-processing forecast tools and techniques; and (7) improved software architecture and system engineering.

The NOAA R2O Initiative is soliciting proposals for projects involving applied science, modeling and/or data assimilation that support development of effective assimilation for environmental observations at global and regional scales and hurricane and other high-impact weather forecast models that meet societal requirements to effectively mitigate economic disruption. This notice provides guidelines for submission of proposals. This notice also describes opportunities and application procedures to demonstrate capabilities that have the potential to be incorporated into operational NWS numerical weather prediction (NWP) analyses and forecasts. The R2O initiative addresses NOAA's Weather Ready Nation (WRN) strategic goal and supporting objectives.

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 3 of 23

FULL ANNOUNCEMENT TEXT

I. Funding Opportunity Description

A. Program Objective

NOAA's Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) initiative seeks to ensure a society that is able to prepare for and respond to environmental events that affect safety, health, the environment, the economy, and homeland security. Recent record-breaking flooding, hurricanes, snowfall, temperatures, drought and tornadoes have combined to inflict the greatest number of multi-billion dollar weather disasters in the Nation’s history. Devastating impacts of extreme events can be reduced through improved readiness, which is why NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) has established the WRN initiative to further reduce the Nation’s weather-related vulnerabilities.

Despite NWS’ consistent and solid performance, further efforts are required to mitigate the loss of life and property resulting from extreme and other high-impact weather events.

Investment into an integrated, holistic, and probabilistic approach to service delivery with improved accuracy, lead time and confidence will strengthen our ability to mitigate the effects of significant weather events. Incorporation of targeted scientific developments and state-of-the-art technology into service delivery will allow stakeholders to better understand the likelihood of severe environmental events and improve their ability to effectively respond.

The purpose of the NOAA Research to Operations (R2O) Initiative is to expand and accelerate critical weather forecasting research to operations to address growing service demands and increase the accuracy of weather forecasts. This will be achieved through: (1) accelerated development and implementation of improved global weather prediction models and inclusion of the coupling among atmosphere, ocean, land surface and ice system components; (2) improved data assimilation techniques; (3) nested regional prediction capabilities; (4) improved hurricane and tropical cyclone modeling techniques; (5) improved ensemble techniques; (6) post-processing forecast tools and techniques; and (7) improved software architecture and system engineering.

The R2O Initiative supports the expansion and acceleration of R2O activities associated with improving weather forecasts through advancements to NOAA’s operational environmental prediction suite. Targeted improvements in the suite will result in multiple weather forecast service improvements. NWS has established the following objectives to accelerate weather forecasting skill:

• A Next Generation Global Prediction System (NGGPS) that meets the evolving national prediction requirements

• Effective assimilation of environmental observations at global and regional scales

• A software architecture and engineered system that maximizes the benefit from high

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 4 of 23 performance computing (HPC) and enabling quicker transition of internal and external research to operations

• Hurricane forecast models, such as the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast System (HWRF), that meet societal requirements to effectively mitigate economic disruption

• High-impact and storm-scale weather forecast models to meet WRN objectives to effectively mitigate impacts of severe weather, flash floods, winter weather, severe convection, aviation weather and fire weather To achieve a world class global prediction system, NOAA plans to:

• Advance physical parameterizations for multiple scales to improve deterministic and probabilistic forecast guidance and explicitly account for uncertainty in parameterization formulation and in sub grid-scale quantities to enable physically-based diversity formulation in ensemble prediction

• Increase resolution of key environmental models to improve the specificity of forecasts

• Improve coupling between component models such as atmosphere, ocean, land surface, sea ice, and coastal prediction systems

• Enhance ensemble prediction systems through the development of more physically based stochastic parameterizations, and through the development of methods that facilitate the extension of NOAA’s global ensemble prediction system to 30 days (e.g., treatments of the effects of land- and ocean-surface uncertainty)

• Develop advanced data assimilation methods for increased usefulness of observations of large and vortex scale circulations at global and regional scales, especially for specific storms such as hurricanes in both global and high resolution (e.g., regional) hurricane modeling systems

• Develop effective nested modeling capabilities for storm-scale forecasts, with post-processing tools and techniques to provide effective decision support for high-impact weather

• Implement advanced scale-aware and stochastic physical parameterization schemes for accurate representation of multi-scale interactions in variable resolution global-to-local scale models

• Develop advanced high resolution ensemble based hurricane prediction systems and post-processing techniques to increase utility of numerical hurricane guidance for forecast applications

• Conduct data impact studies of new and future observing systems, such as the next-generation satellites to enable both rapid incorporation of new and future observing system data, and to guide observing system strategies and requirements

• Build a high-performance, flexible software infrastructure to increase ease of use, performance, and interoperability

• Investigate effective use of emerging HPC technologies; simplification of software structure; and a community-based model infrastructure which will streamline the

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 5 of 23 incorporation of proven research advances into operations

• Develop, test, and apply methods for improving next-generation global reanalyses

• Refine post-processing methods for key variables such as surface temperature, winds, precipitation and precipitation type

• Develop post-processing methods for the 15-30 day period and the data sets needed to support them (retrospective surface analyses and re-forecasts)

• Develop effective diagnostic packages that can be used as tools for model development, model evaluation, and model inter-comparison NOAA's testbeds and proving grounds facilitate the orderly transition of research capabilities to operational implementation through development testing in testbeds, and pre-deployment testing and operational readiness/suitability evaluation in operational proving grounds.

Applicants for this opportunity must work in partnership with NOAA testbeds and proving grounds (listed under www.testbeds.noaa.gov).

Successful projects are expected to demonstrate capabilities that have the potential to provide promising near term improvements to NOAA’s operational environmental prediction suite and forecaster applications. This would be accomplished by NOAA personnel through transition of applicable and transferable research modeling and data assimilation applications into development of NGGPS, operational hurricane forecast models and/or operational assimilation of environmental observations within two to three years after completion of the funding period.

Projects to be funded will involve both research and operational environmental models and data assimilation techniques. Proposals that involve model or data assimilation development should include a plan for testing and evaluating the new capabilities. A hierarchy of testing should be proposed, ranging from demonstration of at least comparable performance to existing model capabilities, to case studies and/or multi-season tests to demonstrate achievement of benchmarks in objective, subjective and engineering readiness required for transition to operations. The latter comprehensive tests can be conducted by NWS in collaboration with the Principal Investigator (PI). Preference will be given to those proposals that include interactions with NCEP, other NWS and/or NOAA scientists, demonstrate adequacy of the metrics proposed for testing and evaluation, effectively leverage and partner with NOAA testbeds/proving ground capabilities, and quantify potential impact of the project on NCEP’s operational predictions (see Evaluation Criteria 1 and 3).

B. Program Priorities

A companion Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO: NOAA-NWS-NWSPO-2018- 2005325) includes a specific call for general model developments, data assimilation and ensemble/post-processing techniques, specifically for advancement in representation of atmospheric model physical processes through coupling with land, ocean, waves, sea ice and aerosols. The companion FFO includes development of physically based parameterizations

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 6 of 23 for applications that span a wide range of spatial scales from cloud and convective permitting resolutions (~1 km) to horizontal resolutions used in climate applications (~100 km). The range of space and time scales covers many unique high-impact weather events for which improved predictions will serve as a basis for enhanced services/benefits to the nation.

Priorities under this funding opportunity are for testing service impacts of proposed model advances for predicting high-impact weather over several key time frames for decision support. The following specific topics are the highest priorities related to the broader themes stated in Section A for projects involving NOAA testbeds and proving grounds. Proposals are expected to have a strong promise of results supporting development of the Next Generation Global Prediction System, and improvement of forecast capabilities for high-impact weather in several time ranges critical for decision support: out to 3 days, days 6-10, and for weeks 3-4.

Priorities under this FFO include the following:

1. Advances in forecasts for days 6-10 NWS provides detailed weather forecasts out to 7 days. However, there is intense demand and interest in extending daily weather forecasts to ten days, with impacts for high-impact weather (e.g. winter weather, heavy precipitation, tropical cyclones, severe convective weather and other phenomena of critical importance to society) and associated mitigation decisions in that time-frame. The NGGPS investment in coupling atmospheric and oceanic models, improving data assimilation, and increasing resolution will result in extending the range of skillful model forecasts. However, even with the very best modeling system, there is a need to evaluate the new NGGPS guidance from objective and subjective perspectives in the Day 6-10 time-frame, with particular focus on high-impact weather, including intense precipitation events, winter weather, and extreme heat/cold. Further, there is a need to translate the raw model guidance into consistent, actionable products and services for decision makers. Testing activities that leverage for example the Hydrometeorological Testbed or Arctic Testbed capabilities will help close these gaps by evaluating skill and effectiveness for decision support of proposed forecast information over this time range.

1a. Advances are also needed in the hurricane and tropical storm prediction subsystem, especially forecast tools and applications that help to reduce hurricane intensity errors, including improvements in assimilation of observations and initialization procedures.

Testing activities leveraging the capabilities of the Joint Hurricane Testbed to improve NOAA’s actionable intelligence for decision makers will receive priority.

2. Advances in forecasts for weeks 3-4 Currently, NOAA/NWS does not issue explicit week 3 to 4 forecast products operationally, although there is great demand from a wide-variety of stakeholders for such forecasts.

Forecasts for this time band lie outside our current understanding of the limit of predictability for initial weather forecasts as was initially documented by Ed Lorenz and subsequently verified in numerous studies. Forecasts for this time band also lie at the

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 7 of 23 intersection between possible enhancement to forecast skill due to the representation of atmosphere-ocean coupling and possible degradation in forecast skill due to biases associated with coupled feedback between the atmospheric and oceanic models. Finally, forecasts at this time range are generally characterized as having a small signal and large noise. Therefore, there are a large number of science questions (gaps) that need to be answered in order to ultimately produce useful forecast products for our stakeholders. These include the atmosphere-ocean coupling strategy, statistical correction/calibration methods, extraction of information from ensemble forecasts and associated reforecasts via post-processing methods, and evaluation of forecast value in the context of specific decision making tools. Testing activities leveraging the capabilities of the Climate Testbed can help close these gaps by first evaluating the potential skill and proposed improvements for forecasts at these timescales to achieve reliably useful operational forecast products.

3. Advances in forecasts for high-impact weather: days 0-3 This includes advances in storm-scale, fire weather and convective/severe weather prediction. On small scales this involves applying nearly all the other aspects of NWP improvement listed here - prediction model, physics, ensembles, and data assimilation; but at the smallest scales which must push below 1 km grid spacing, and at the highest frequency possible. The latter is driven by the volatile nature of the phenomena and the need for forecast guidance to be refreshed with observations to reflect rapidly changing conditions and circumstances. Concepts of continual data assimilation (4D Hybrid Ensemble Variational but perpetually in core) and on demand predictions must be considered. Update frequency for data assimilation must be in terms of minutes and since every piece of information will be needed, minimizing latency and improving quality control will continue to be critical challenges. Since ensembles of the highest resolution are required, the computer requirements will grow substantially and will most likely be provided centrally.

This will necessitate highly efficient and portable, placeable, movable solutions within the

NGGPS.

One critical need to support daily forecasts of high impact weather events, including tornado outbreaks, flash floods and major aviation disruptions due to thunderstorms, is for a rigorously formulated, operationally executed convection allowing ensemble. Investment in super computing resources will enable initial establishment of this capacity, but success will require systematic experimentation that leverages NOAA testbeds, such as the Hazardous Weather Testbed, to enable effective collaboration between model developers, specialized forecast centers, and the research community with a focus on establishment of an optimal ensemble design. Design elements include the selection and refinement of appropriate dynamic cores, scale and phenomena appropriate physics, and ensemble perturbation strategy, with appropriate coupling to and leveraging of global scale predictive systems. A key first step will be to refine and test forecast evaluations (verification) systems for measuring success on convective scales, including establishing robust metrics for diverse

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 8 of 23

United States high impact weather service challenges, to support effective modeling system improvement cycles and to measure overall project success. Establishment of a storm-scale ensemble prediction system is essential to support United States goals for a Weather Ready Nation, and to enable next-generation severe storm warning capacities referred to as Warn-on-Forecast. Proposed projects that leverage testing capabilities such as the Hazardous Weather Testbed or Aviation Weather Testbed, can advance these capabilities.

C. Program Authority

Authority for this program is provided by the following: 15 U.S.C. 313; 49 U.S.C.

44720 (b); 33 U.S.C. 883d; 15 U.S.C. 2904; 15 U.S.C. 2934

II. Award Information

A. Funding Availability

The total funding amount available for all proposals is anticipated to be approximately $1,000,000. Funding is subject to availability. The maximum award that can be requested is $200,000 total cost per year per proposal. Proposals over $200,000 per year will be returned to the applicant and rejected. Individual award amounts are expected to range from $100,000 to $200,000 per year with a maximum funding request of two years. Funding amounts (including renewal amounts) and duration are subject to change based on budgetary and performance considerations. Only one proposal per principal investigator at a given institution may be funded. The Federal Program Officer can reduce, in consultation with the R2O Project Officer, the amount allocated for any award due to budgetary or programmatic considerations. Some proposals that have not been selected for funding under this announcement of opportunity may be asked to resubmit their applications via grants.gov to other competitive NOAA funding opportunities.

B. Project/Award Period

This program announcement is for projects to be conducted for a two-year period with an anticipated start date of September 1, 2018 unless otherwise directed. When a proposal is approved, funding will initially be provided for only the first year of the project. If an application is selected for initial funding, the R2O Initiative has no obligation to provide additional funding in connection with that award for the following year. Funding for the following year is at the discretion of the program managers, and can be adjusted (increased or decreased) individually. It will be also be contingent upon satisfactory progress in relation to the stated goals of the proposal to address specific science needs and priorities of the R2O Initiative, and subject to the availability of funds. Applications must include a sufficiently detailed scope of work and a detailed budget for the entire multi-year award period. Semi-

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 9 of 23 annual progress reports will be required from the PI’s as well as a final closeout report. The Program Office may also request yearly reports. Selected projects may be reviewed by the Program Office yearly to assess progress, funding constraints, and impact on the R2O priorities listed in this announcement of opportunity.

Continuation review is based on the following criteria: (1) degree of progress toward meeting the original milestones in the proposal timeline; and (2) the potential for completing testing and evaluation or providing evidence of potential contribution to development of NGGPS by the end of the second year. Given a favorable review, each project may be funded for a second year. In certain situations, circumstances material to the stated objectives of the proposal may change sufficiently to require a modification to some aspect of the original proposal. The awardee may be asked by the Program Office to address these concerns, and the Program Office will evaluate the adequacy of the awardees’ response.

A project reaches its completion in one of two ways: A multi-year project may end after approximately one year if the program manager (with input from technical monitors) decides, as described above, that insufficient progress has been made to justify continuation of the project into year two. A funded project would end successfully with the submission by the principal investigator(s) of a final report at the conclusion of the original agreed-upon project duration that convincingly shows the potential of research to contribute to the progress of NGGPS goals, and be described in a manuscript for a peer-reviewed publication within two to three years after the end of funding.

C. Type of Funding Instrument

The funding instrument for non-Federal applicants will be a Cooperative Agreement.

NOAA cooperative research activities provide financial support to enhance the public benefits to be derived from these research activities and engage NOAA scientists and other personnel for frequent consultation and advice.

Proposals from NOAA scientists selected for funding shall be effected by an intra-agency fund transfer. Proposals from a non-NOAA Federal agency selected for funding will be funded through an inter-agency transfer. PLEASE NOTE: Before non-NOAA Federal applicants may be funded, they must demonstrate that they have legal authority to receive funds from another Federal agency in excess of their appropriation. The only exception to this is governmental research facilities for awards issued under the authority of 49 USC 44720(b). Because this announcement is not proposing to procure goods or services from applicants, the Economy Act (31 USC 1535) is not an appropriate legal basis.

NOAA collaborates on cooperative research activities and provides financial support to enhance the public benefits to be derived from these research activities. NOAA envisions that project testing and evaluation will involve close collaboration, facilitated by the NWS staff, between program-funded researchers, operational center forecasters and other point(s) of contact. For example, operational forecasters may actually run or utilize output from the

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 10 of 23 experimental technique during their operational shifts or at other times, and they may then provide direct feedback to the researchers for possible modifications.

If the applicant is a university that has a NOAA Joint or Cooperative Institute (CI), the institution is encouraged to submit a proposal on behalf of the CI. The proposal must specify the name of the CI, its award number, and the NOAA-approved research theme applicable to the work to be performed in the proposal’s project narrative. The proposal will use the facilities and administrative rate (F&A or Indirect cost rate) associated with the main CI award. If such a proposal is selected for funding, NOAA will notify the university that a separate competitive award will be issued with its own award number. However, the competitive award will include a Special Award Condition (SAC) that evidences the link between this new award and the CI award. The SAC would provide that: (1) the university has submitted the proposal on behalf of the CI; (2) the existing University/NOAA Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) will be incorporated by reference into the terms of the competitive award; and (3) any progress report(s) for the competitive award must follow the timetable of and be submitted by the CI directly to the funding program. Copies of these progress reports may be attached to the CI’s performance report as an appendix.

III. Eligibility Information

A. Eligible Applicants

1. Eligible Sources All public or private sources may submit to this Federal Funding Opportunity; however, partnering with universities is highly encouraged. Eligible applicants are institutions of higher education; other nonprofits; commercial organizations; state, local and Indian tribal governments; and Federal agencies. Applicants for this opportunity must work in partnership with NOAA testbeds and proving grounds (listed under www.testbeds.noaa.gov).

An eligible organization may submit more than one application (from different principal investigators per II.A).

2. Foreign Participants Foreign participants and/or individuals may participate to the extent that such participants comply with any necessary Non-Disclosure Agreements, Security Regulations, and any other applicable statutes. Some requirements may cover export-controlled technologies. Research in these areas is limited to “U.S. persons” as defined in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 22 CFR §1201.1.

3. Federally Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs) Federally Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs), including Department of Energy National Laboratories, are not eligible to receive awards as lead investigators under this FFO. However, teaming arrangements between FFRDCs and eligible applicants are allowed to the extent that such an arrangement is permitted under the sponsoring agreement

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 11 of 23 between the Government and the FFRDC.

4. Laboratories Federal laboratories are eligible to receive awards as lead investigators under this FFO, only for proposals to work in partnership with NOAA testbeds and proving grounds. As with FFRDCs, these organizations may team with responsible sources from academia and industry that are submitting proposals under this FFO.

5. University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) University Affiliated Research Centers are eligible to submit proposals under this FFO unless precluded from doing so by their UARC contracts with the Government.

6. Teaming Teams are also encouraged and may submit proposals in any and all areas. However, partners that are ineligible as lead investigators may not exceed 70% of the funded work.

Applicants must be willing to cooperate and exchange software, data and other information in an integrated program with other project participants.

Federal/external partnerships should send only 1 proposal to grants.gov from the external partner (such as a university or Cooperative Institute) as the lead investigator. Budget proposals should detail the portion of the proposal that will fund the federal partners including staff time and equipment (including salaries). If investigators from multiple partners are listed, then the contributions and budgets for each must be clearly indicated.

Government agencies must partner with a NOAA testbed to be eligible. Applications which are exclusively from Federal agencies should be submitted directly to:

christopher.hedge@noaa.gov Collaborations with PIs at different universities are allowed, but there must be a single application from a lead university with subawards to the participants from other institutions.

Other arrangements will not be considered.

B. Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement

No cost sharing is required under this program.

C. Other Criteria that Affect Eligibility none.

IV. Application and Submission Information

A. Address to Request Application Package

The standard application package is available at http://www.grants.gov. Federal applicants are asked to follow the Content and Form of Application described in section IV.

B. and submit proposals by email to christopher.hedge@noaa.gov.

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 12 of 23

B. Content and Form of Application

1. Letters of Intent (LOI) The purpose of the LOI process is to provide information to potential applicants on the relevance of their proposed project and the likelihood of it being funded in advance of preparing a full application. An applicant must submit an LOI by the indicated LOI deadline in order to be eligible to submit a full application. If an LOI is not submitted on a timely basis, a full application will not be considered and will be returned to the applicant without review. Full applications will be encouraged only for LOIs deemed relevant; however, the final decision to submit a full application is made by the investigator. The LOI should summarize anticipated yearly budget, project scope and NOAA testbeds and/or proving grounds partners, and be no more than 2 pages in length. LOIs will be reviewed by the Program Office. Letters or emails to discourage or encourage a full proposal are scheduled to be sent by the Federal Program Officer about 2 weeks after the LOI due date.

2. Applications Proposals should total no more than 25 pages in length, single spaced including the title page and abstract. The description of the project should total no more than 15 pages in length.

Descriptions exceeding the 15 page limit will only be reviewed up to the page limit. Excess material will not be reviewed and may result in the proposal receiving a lower score. It is strongly recommended that Times New Roman 12 point font, or an equivalent size, be used.

Federally mandated forms, tables of contents, and any letters of support are not included within the page count, but all other information is. Each proposal must be dated and contain page numbers.

Multi-year proposals up to a maximum of two years will be considered; however, funding beyond the first year will be strictly dependent upon satisfactory performance and the availability of funds. The starting date is expected to be September 1, 2018 on all proposals unless otherwise directed by the Program Office. The Program Office may delay the start of selected awards due to budgetary or other exigent circumstances.

The application elements listed below are required before an award can be made. Failure to submit elements a, d, and e by the deadline will result in the application not being reviewed if the omissions are not corrected prior to the deadline. The Program Office will make an effort to notify the applicant of any omissions, but there is no guarantee this can occur prior to the application deadline. Proposals not meeting the content requirements listed in this section may be rejected and returned to the applicant. The aforementioned application elements are as follows:

a. Title Page. The title page must be officially authorized by the institutional representative.

The PIs and institutional representative(s) should be identified by full name, title, organization, telephone number, and address. Please include the correct email for the principal investigator and any other proposal manager. The title page should clearly indicate

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 13 of 23 which priority area(s) are being addressed and the total amount of requested funding per year. Federal funds should be listed for each budget period.

b. Abstract Page. An abstract should be included and should contain an introduction of the problem, rationale, and a brief summary of work to be completed. The abstract should appear on a separate page, headed with the proposal title, institution's investigators, targeted program priority area(s) in Section I. B., total proposed cost, and budget period as well as the NOAA organizations sought for collaboration.

c. Results from Prior Research. The results of relevant projects supported by NOAA and other agencies should be described, including their relation to the currently proposed work.

Prior research that demonstrated the potential to favorably impact and/or successfully transition operational environmental modeling and data assimilation system(s) should be emphasized. Reference to each prior research award should include the title, agency, award number, PIs, period of award, and total award. This section should be a brief summary and should not exceed two pages total.

d. Project description. The proposed project must be completely described in a statement of work including identification of the problem, scientific objectives, proposed methodology that includes a testing and evaluation approach, metric(s) for success, project deliverables and a timeline with key milestones. The statement of work should also include relevance to the priorities of the R2O Initiative; maturity of science and operational applicability as described Sections I. A. and I. B.; scientific merit; proposed technology transfer if any and cost effectiveness of research. Benefits of the proposed project to improve operational environmental forecasts should be discussed. A year-by-year summary of proposed work milestones must be included. Specific collaboration with NOAA testbed and proving ground scientists and technical personnel should be detailed. The project description should be no more than 15 pages in length. Descriptions exceeding the 15 page limit will only be reviewed up to the page limit. Excess material will not be reviewed and may result in the proposal receiving a lower score.

e. Budget and Proposed Budget Justification. Applicants must submit a Standard Form (SF) 424, Application for Federal Assistance, including a detailed budget using the SF-424A, Budget Information-Non-Construction Programs. (The forms are available on grants.gov.)

Please pay careful attention to show the yearly budget breakout on the SF-424A for two-year proposals. In addition, the body of the proposal should include a separate table showing total and annual budgets (if multi-year) corresponding with the project description. In order to fully evaluate the appropriateness of costs, all applications must include a detailed budget narrative and justification to support all proposed budget categories for each of the funding periods anticipated. The budget narrative must be consistent with the SF-424A budget and should be broken out and detailed using the same budget categories as the SF-424A budget form. Personnel costs should be broken out by named PI and time requested per PI per year.

Any unnamed personnel (graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, technicians) should be

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 14 of 23 identified by job title, and their personnel costs explained similar to PI personnel costs above. The contribution of personnel to the project goals should be explained. Please reference the Grants Management Division budget narrative guidance for further information and examples for each budget category. The guidance can be found at http://www.ago.noaa.gov/grants/training.html. PIs are strongly encouraged to plan and budget for travel during each year of the project for attendance to a PI meeting at NCWCP in College Park, Maryland to present an update of the progress and status of their work.

Applicants requesting an approved Federal indirect cost rate are required to submit a copy of their current and signed indirect cost rate agreement with the application package. See B.

Administrative and National Policy Requirements, 9. Indirect Cost Rate for more information on indirect cost rates. Additionally, at the time of submission, each competitive proposal application package submitted by a NOAA Cooperative Institute (CI) PI that has been approved by the University must include a cover letter describing the intent to incorporate the terms of the CI Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). The cover letter will specify the name of the Cooperative Institute, the current CI cooperative agreement number, and the NOAA-approved research theme and task that applies to the proposal.

f. Vitae. Abbreviated curriculum vitae are sought with each proposal. Reference lists should be limited to all publications in the last three years with up to five other relevant papers.

g. Current and Pending Support. For each investigator, submit a list which includes project title, supporting agency with grant number, investigator months, dollar value, and duration.

Requested values should be listed for pending support.

h. No reference to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) questionnaire is required in the proposal.

i. Proposals submitted in response to this Announcement must include a Data Management Plan (up to 2 pages). See Section VI.B., Administrative and National Policy Requirements, below for additional information on what the plan should contain. If the proposed activities do not generate any environmental data, the data sharing plan could include the statement “this project will not generate any environmental data”. The data sharing plan does not count towards the 15-page maximum for the project description.

j. Also required as part of the NOAA Standard Non-Construction Application Package:

Standard Form 424B (Assurances - Non-Construction Programs), and Form CD-511 (Certification Regarding Lobbying). Standard Form LLL (Disclosure of Lobbying Activities) should be submitted as applicable.

C. Unique Entity Identifier and System for Award Management (SAM)

To enable the use of a universal identifier and to enhance the quality of information available to the public as required by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, 31 U.S.C. 6101 note, to the extent applicable, any proposal awarded in response to this announcement will be required to use the System for Award Management (SAM), which

Federal Funding Opportunity Page 15 of 23 may be accessed online at https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM/ . Applicants are also required to use the Dun and Bradstreet Universal Numbering System, as identified in OMB guidance published at 2 CFR Parts 25, which may be accessed at http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=2dae4a7dcd5848a6364bb94d2d7786dd&mc=t rue&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title02/2subtitleA.tpl.

Each applicant is required to:

a. Register in SAM before submitting an application

b. Provide a valid unique entity identifier in the application

c. Continue to maintain an active SAM registration with current information at all times during which it has an active Federal award or an application or plan under consideration by NOAA (or any other Federal agency) NOAA may not make a Federal award to an applicant until the applicant has complied with all applicable unique entity identifier and SAM requirements. If an applicant has not fully complied with the requirements by the time NOAA is ready to make a Federal award, NOAA may determine that the applicant is not qualified to receive a Federal award and use that determination as a basis for making a Federal award to another applicant.

D. Submission Dates and Times

The deadline for receipt of proposals at the NOAA/NWS office is 5:00 PM EST, February 7, 2018. When proposals are submitted through grants.gov, a date and time receipt indication is included and will be the basis of determining timeliness. Proposals received after the deadline will be rejected and returned to the sender without further consideration.

Letters of Intent (LOI) are required for this announcement. LOIs summarizing anticipated yearly budget, project scope and NOAA testbeds and/or proving grounds partners must be received by 5:00 PM EST on December 13, 2017. LOIs should be submitted by email to christopher.hedge@noaa.gov. An applicant must submit an LOI by the deadline in order to be eligible to submit a full application. If an LOI is not submitted on a timely basis, a full application will not be considered and will be returned to the applicant without review. Full applications will be encouraged only for LOIs deemed relevant; however, the final decision to submit a full application is made by the investigator.

E. Intergovernmental Review

Applications under this program are not subject to Executive Order 12372, Intergovernmental Review of Federal Programs.

F. Funding Restrictions

Funding beyond the first year will be dependent upon satisfactory performance and the continued availability of funds. No more than one award per Principal Investigator will be

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G. Other Submission Requirements

The standard application package is submitted through http://www.grants.gov. Federal applicants should submit proposals by email to christopher.hedge@noaa.gov.

V. Application Review Information

A. Evaluation Criteria

The R2O proposal reviewers will base their recommendations regarding each proposal upon the extent to which the following criteria (listed with assigned weights) are satisfied:

1. Importance and/or relevance and applicability of the proposed project to program goals (30 points): This criterion ascertains whether there is intrinsic value in the proposed work and/or relevance to NOAA, Federal, regional, State or local activities. For this competition, this includes the following questions:

a. What is the likelihood of the proposed science activities improving operational environmental analyses and/or forecasts?

b. Are proposed research activities easily transitioned to development of NGGPS, to improvement of the operational hurricane prediction subsystem or to enabling of effective operational assimilation of environmental observations in a reasonable time frame, e.g., within two to three years upon completion of funding?

c. What is the degree of collaboration with NOAA testbeds and proving grounds, and relevant operational centers throughout the project?

d. What is the level of planning by researchers to test and evaluate proposed modeling advancements to meet operational model and/or data assimilation skill standards for potential transition into operations successfully and efficiently?

2. Technical/Scientific Merit (30 points): This criterion assesses whether the approach is technically sound and innovative, if the methods are appropriate, and whether there are clear project goals and objectives. For this competition this includes:

a. What is the intrinsic scientific value and maturity of the subject and the study proposed as they relate to the specific science priorities?

b. Were focused scientific objectives and strategies, including project milestones used?

c. Is there a sufficient Data Management Plan (if applicable) to share data and information that is collected or created?

3. Overall Qualification of Applicants (25 points): This criterion ascertains whether the applicant possesses the necessary education, experience, training, facilities, and administrative resources to accomplish the project. For this competition, this includes:

a. Do PIs have the required expertise and experience to carry out proposed work?

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b. Do PIs clearly document past scientific collaborations with operational modeling scientists or operational weather forecasters that contained potential to improve operational forecasts?

c. Have past interactions with NOAA been successful?

d. Are researchers likely to maintain effective and consistent interactions with NOAA testbeds, including NCEP, other NWS and/or NOAA modeling scientists or operational weather forecasters throughout the course of the proposed research program?

e. Have researchers demonstrated the ability to conduct successful research?

4. Project Costs (15 points): This criterion evaluates the budget to determine if it is realistic and commensurate with the project needs and time-frame. For this competition, this includes:

a. Do researchers demonstrate the ability to build upon existing expertise/capabilities?

b. Is there a high ratio of operationally useful results versus proposed costs?

5. Outreach and Education (0 points):

This criterion assesses whether the project provides a focused and effective education and outreach strategy regarding NOAA's mission to protect the Nation's natural resources. This competition does not use this criterion.

B. Review and Selection Process

An initial administrative review/screening is conducted to determine compliance with requirements and for completeness. All proposals will be evaluated and scored individually by a group of at least three professionally and technically qualified reviewers in accordance with the assigned weights of the above evaluation criteria by independent peer mail review and/or by independent peer panel reviews. Reviews will be conducted by scientific experts, primarily representing operational environmental modeling, data assimilation, service improvement and forecast communities. The merit reviewers' ratings and comments are used to produce a rank order of the proposals for final consideration by the Program Office. The Selecting Official selects proposals after considering the peer panel reviews and selection factors listed below. In making the final selections, the Selecting Official will award in rank order unless the proposal is justified to be selected out of rank order based upon one or more of the selection factors that can be influenced by strategic imperatives of the R2O initiative.

C. Selection Factors

Merit review ratings shall provide a rank order to the Selecting Official for final funding recommendations. The Selecting Official shall award in the rank order unless the proposal is justified to be selected out of rank order based upon one or more of the following factors:

1. Availability of funding

2. Balance/distribution of funds by (a) geographical balance; (b) type of institutions; (c) type of partners; (d) research areas; and (e) project types

3. Duplication of other projects funded or considered for funding by NOAA/Federal

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4. Program priorities and policy factors

5. Applicant's prior award performance

6. Partnerships with and participation of targeted groups

7. Adequacy of information necessary for NOAA staff to make a NEPA determination and draft necessary documentation before recommendations for funding are made to the Grants Officer

D. Anticipated Announcement and Award Dates

Subject to the availability of funds, review of proposals will occur from mid-February to April 2018, and funding should begin by September 2018 for most approved projects.

Assumed start date for funded projects will be September 1, 2018 unless otherwise directed by the R2O Program Office.

VI. Award Administration Information

A. Award Notices

Successful applicants will receive notification that their application has been recommended for funding by the NOAA Grants Management Division. This notification is not an authorization to begin performance of the project. Official notification of funding from the NOAA Grants Officer is the authorization that allows the project to begin.

Notification will be issued to the Authorizing Official of the project either electronically or in hard copy.