Fund Your Geospatial Research: Get Govt. Grants!

The Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a cooperative agreement opportunity to Universities that have the ability to conduct research on geographic information science applications in the Rocky Mountains CESU. CEGIS primarily conducts research and develops solutions in support of The National Map and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). Current research projects include (but are not limited to) design of an electronic topographic map, automated data integration and generalization, creating an ontology for The National Map, user-centered design for Web map services, and representation of geospatial data, phenomena, and processes as multi-resolution raster data, http://cegis.usgs.gov/.

For a successful cooperative agreement, the partner University must have complementary research interests and be able to address these and other potential research topics. CEGIS specifically is seeking collaborative opportunities with Universities for a broad range of research and development efforts related to The National Map and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, which support land management, environmental and research agencies, and universities as well as USGS science. Multiple scale support is a critical component of research efforts to build spatial data infrastructures and includes the ability to generalize from a high resolution to any user-specified lower resolution. Cartographic design, display, and visualization of geospatial data at multiple scales is a part of the desired collaboration.

CEGIS is trying to establish working collaborations among Federal agencies and Universities and other partner institutions to accomplish mutual research objectives. In addition cooperative projects should include and foster student training opportunities in geospatial information science, cartography, and environmental studies. Award Information It is expected that the cooperative agreement will last up to five years with the opportunity for multiple renewals. The cooperative agreement provides the means under which individual CEGIS projects may arrange to work with members of the Rocky Mountains CESU.

Under this agreement, work may be funded as collaborative proposals or as grants, depending on the extent and type of involvement of the USGS in the work. The amount of funding for the CESU cooperative agreement initial year is estimated to be $102,435. The funding amounts will depend on the opportunities for mutual research between the university and individual CEGIS projects. Work performance under this agreement will start upon acceptance of the agreement and funding may continue throughout the period of the cooperative agreement.

Additional funding will be based upon availability of funds.