Landscape Approaches to Resource Stewardship | P18AS00711

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00711

The Department of the Interior, through the National Park Service (NPS), issued a funding notice titled "Landscape Approaches to Resource Stewardship" (Funding Opportunity Number P18AS00711) to publicly document its intent to support a specific research effort focused on improving how park managers assess and prioritize stewardship actions across both natural and cultural resources. The project sits within the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category (CFDA 15.945) and is structured as a cooperative agreement, meaning the work is expected to be carried out with substantial collaboration between the NPS and the recipient rather than as a simple pass-through grant.

At the core of the project is the idea that managing landscapes effectively requires a holistic, multi-scale framework that can handle the complex ways natural and cultural resource concerns overlap, run in parallel, or diverge. The opportunity emphasizes that building an approach to assess cultural resources is a major undertaking, but that doing this foundational, exploratory work will pay off later by making future cultural resource assessments more efficient and consistent, similar to how earlier development of natural resource assessment methods can streamline later efforts. In practical terms, the work is aimed at helping managers in the National Capital Region (NCR) make defensible decisions when faced with many competing needs, limited budgets, and resource management questions that span ecological systems, historic sites, and culturally significant places.

A key deliverable implied by the description is a decision-making approach that is both transparent and justifiable. That framing matters because it suggests the project is not only about technical assessment methods, but also about creating a clear rationale for why certain actions should be prioritized over others. The announcement highlights collaboration to design a process for prioritizing stewardship actions and then testing whether those actions are feasible. This points to a practical, management-oriented outcome: a framework or toolset that helps decision-makers identify promising actions, evaluate tradeoffs, and support choices with documented reasoning that can be explained to stakeholders.

Administratively, this notice is not a competitive solicitation. It is explicitly described as a Notice of Intent to Award, and it states that no applications will be accepted. The NPS indicates it will fund the project without competition by modifying an existing task agreement under an already-established cooperative agreement with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (referenced as P17AC01034). The eligible applicant category listed is public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, but in this case the recipient is effectively predetermined due to the non-competitive modification approach described in the notice.

The anticipated award details are modest and specific: an expected single award with a ceiling of $29,952. The notice was created on September 19, 2018, with an original closing date of September 29, 2018, which in this context functions more as a public posting window than an application deadline since the announcement does not accept proposals. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as an official public record of NPS intent to continue or expand an existing collaborative research effort that will strengthen landscape-scale stewardship by integrating natural and cultural resource assessment into a coherent, defensible prioritization and feasibility-testing process.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Landscape Approaches to Resource Stewardship" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 19, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 29, 2018 This is a Notice of Intent to Award, not a request for applications and no applications will be accepted under this announcement. The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to provide public notice of the National Park Serviceaposs intention to fund this project without competition as a modification to an existing task agreement under an existing cooperative agreement with University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (P17AC01034) .. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $29,952.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P18AS00711

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: