Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (Colorado Plateau or Rocky Mountain CESU) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (Colorado Plateau or Rocky Mountain CESU) opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 09HQPA0020) is a discretionary, science and technology research and development award offered by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) through a cooperative agreement. It was designed to support a project known as "Park Break," a collaborative effort that brings graduate students into national park settings to both assist parks with real management needs and give students direct exposure to applied conservation and protected-area science. The program is explicitly framed as a partnership venture involving two federal agencies and two nonprofit organizations, with a strong emphasis on increasing participation by minority graduate students and broadening awareness of career pathways within agencies like USGS and the National Park Service (NPS).

At the core of the opportunity is the idea that parks face complex, evolving challenges that require current science translated into practical guidance. Park Break is structured to create a research framework for parks organized around global scientific themes considered critical for managing parks into the next century. Those themes include global climate change, water availability, natural hazards, the effects of urbanization, public engagement in park issues, and conservation policy. Rather than focusing narrowly on a single research question, the program encourages work that is directly relevant to management decisions and aligned with these large-scale, cross-cutting issues that affect many protected areas.

A major objective is to provide direct research expertise to individual parks. Graduate students participating in Park Break are expected to produce high-quality, scientific literature reviews tailored to the needs of a specific park and theme. The work is not meant to be academic in isolation; students are expected to engage in dialogue with park staff and USGS scientists to understand how the science connects to on-the-ground realities, constraints, and decision timelines. The end product is a detailed summary for park management that includes references and actionable recommendations. Importantly, these summaries are intended to be submitted to peer-reviewed journals, which signals that the program is aiming for strong scientific integrity, documentation standards, and wider dissemination beyond the immediate park audience.

Another central goal is professional development. Park Break is positioned as a bridge between graduate training and the professional workforce, helping students place their academic skills in the context of real protected-area management issues. By working directly with practitioners and agency scientists, students gain experience in applied science communication, stakeholder-informed problem definition, and the translation of research into management-relevant products. This workforce-oriented component is especially tied to the program's diversity objective, which seeks to encourage minority graduate students to participate and to increase their exposure to potential careers in federal science and land management agencies, particularly USGS and NPS.

In terms of funding and award structure, the announcement anticipated a single award with an estimated total funding amount of $16,000, with an award ceiling of $16,000 and no stated minimum (award floor $0). There was no cost-sharing or matching requirement. The assistance listing associated with the opportunity is CFDA 15.808 (U.S. Geological Survey Research and Data Collection). The instrument type is a cooperative agreement, which typically indicates substantial involvement by the federal agency in the project compared to a standard grant, aligning with the program's emphasis on collaboration among students, park staff, and USGS scientists.

Eligibility was limited to organizations that are already participating partners in the Colorado Plateau or Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Program. CESUs are partnership networks intended to deliver research, technical assistance, and education through collaborations among federal agencies, universities, nonprofits, and other partners. This means the opportunity was not broadly open to the general public or to institutions outside those CESU networks; applicants needed to be part of the relevant CESU to apply.

Finally, the posting timeline shows this was a short-fuse, time-limited announcement originally posted on February 26, 2009, with an application closing date of March 2, 2009, and an archive date of April 1, 2009. The listed point of contact for access issues or questions was Faith Graves, Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer, reachable by phone at 703-648-7356.

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