New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awards federal grants to New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium, a non-profit research and education consortium based in Highlands, New Jersey, as the prime recipient under NOAA's Sea Grant Support program (CFDA 11.417) and related marine science initiatives. New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium operates as a not-for-profit alliance of colleges, universities, and public and private entities focused on advancing marine and coastal resource stewardship, research, and workforce development in New Jersey and the broader Mid-Atlantic region.

New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium's federal grant portfolio centers on three capability areas: applied oceanographic and fisheries research, marine workforce development and apprenticeship training, and coastal policy education and fellowships. Recent representative work includes a $159,998 Cooperative Agreement from NOAA awarded August 2026 to quantify interannual variability of the Mid-Atlantic Bight cold pool using regional ocean modeling and assess connections to longfin squid migration timing—work performed through July 2028 with implications for fishery management under climate change. The consortium administers the Knauss Fellowship program, a recurring NOAA-funded fellowship providing one-year graduate student placements in executive and legislative branch offices to develop expertise in federal marine and coastal policy; six such awards appear in recent years with one-year terms. A $151,000 Cooperative Agreement awarded June 2025 supports the Apprenticeship in Shellfish Aquaculture Program (ASAP), a collaborative workforce-development initiative with Rutgers University's Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory and local high schools across six New Jersey counties, providing aquaculture literacy curriculum, five-day bootcamps, and paid eight-week farm apprenticeships to approximately 360 high school students per year through May 2027. Additional work includes environmental literacy and marine debris curriculum development in partnership with Columbia University and New York Sea Grant, coastal flood advisory system usability research with Stevens Institute, and shellfish hatchery biosecurity standards development across Atlantic and Gulf regions with Rutgers, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Texas A&M as sub-recipients.

Customer concentration is near-total with NOAA: 44 of 51 awards in the recent footprint are NOAA-funded Sea Grant Cooperative Agreements covering roughly 92% of award count. Remaining awards distribute among the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Activity has remained steady at two to six awards per year over the past five years, with four awards reaching ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months. The consortium acts as prime recipient on 94% of awards; three recent sub-awards flow through the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as pass-through funding to support Sea Grant project goals. Despite the high count of awards, the combined potential value across all awards stands at $56 thousand, reflecting that most are annual renewal segments of multi-year Cooperative Agreements under the Sea Grant College Program. Obligated dollars total $73.5 million across the footprint, indicating substantial cumulative federal investment in the Sea Grant mission over the consortium's operational history since at least 1983.