A Principal Investigator wishing to submit a proposal through NGI should work with the sponsored programs office at his/her institution to submit the proposal package electronically to the Program Office. The complete proposal package should consist of the following:

• Cover Sheet
• Detailed Budget in Microsoft Excel format(template)
• Detailed Budget Narrative(NOAA budget guidelines)
• Project Narrative to include the following:
• Description of Work - Research Plan
1. Introduction/Narrative - Information contained in this section of the proposal should provide background information and significance of the proposed research.
2. Specific aims/milestones - Information contained in this section of the proposal should provide the proposed goals and expected outcomes. It should also show when the researcher expects to reach the proposed goals and outcomes.
3. Relationship to NOAA Goals - Information contained in this section of the proposal should show how the proposed research relates to the current NOAA Research Goals identified by the Cooperative Institute.
• Description of project performance sites - List facilities that may be used outside of the Cooperative Institute where research will take place that is directly related to the proposed research - this would not include consortium members.
• List of senior and key personnel - Describe their specific role as it relates to the specific aims/milestones.
• Data Management Plan - Proposals must include a Data Management Plan (DMP) of up to two pages describing how these requirements will be satisfied. The DMP should be aligned with the Data Management Guidance provided by NOAA . The contents of the Data Management Plan (or absence thereof), and past performance regarding such plans, will be considered as part of proposal review. A typical plan should include descriptions of the types of environmental data and information expected to be created during the course of the project; the tentative date by which data will be shared; the standards to be used for data/metadata format and content; methods for providing data access; approximate total volume of data to be collected; and prior experience in making such data accessible. The costs of data preparation, accessibility, or archiving may be included in the proposal budget unless otherwise stated in the Guidance.



Accepted submission of data to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information(NCEI) is one way to satisfy data sharing requirements; however, NCEI is not obligated to accept all submissions and may charge a fee, particularly for large or unusual datasets.

Environmental data and information collected or created under NOAA grants or cooperative agreements must be made discoverable by and accessible to the general public, in a timely fashion (typically within two years), free of charge or at no more than the cost of reproduction, unless an exemption is granted by the NOAA Program. Data should be available in at least one machine-readable format, preferably a widely-used or open-standard format, and should also be accompanied by machine-readable documentation (metadata), preferably based on widely-used or international standards.

Proposal submitters are hereby advised that the final pre-publication manuscripts of scholarly articles produced entirely or primarily with NOAA funding will be required to be submitted to NOAA Institutional Repository after acceptance, and no later than upon publication. Such manuscripts shall be made publicly available by NOAA one year after publication by the journal.

Questions related to the proposal submission process should be directed to Whitley Alford, NGI Program Administrator .