Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Desert Southwest CESU | G19AS00111

Opportunity Information: Apply for G19AS00111

This opportunity, titled "Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Desert Southwest CESU" (Funding Opportunity Number G19AS00111), is a discretionary U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) funding announcement under the Department of the Interior. It supports science and technology research and development through a cooperative agreement, meaning the award is structured for active collaboration between USGS and the selected partner rather than a hands-off grant. The assistance listing (CFDA) associated with this program is 15.808. The opportunity was created on August 5, 2019, with an original application deadline of August 19, 2019, and it anticipated making a single award.

The core purpose of the project is to advance research that helps managers better anticipate and respond to forest pest outbreaks, specifically by co-producing ecological forecasts that can be used in real management decisions. Although the opportunity is routed through the Desert Southwest CESU mechanism, the research focus described is on pest outbreak risks in Northeastern U.S. forests. The emphasis is not just on generating scientific outputs, but on developing usable forecasting and decision-support tools that align with how land managers actually make choices under uncertainty and time constraints.

A key feature of the proposed work is knowledge co-production: the funded project is expected to bring together researchers, land managers, and community stakeholders to jointly define the problem, identify what information is most actionable, and shape how forecasts are translated into practical products. Rather than treating stakeholders as end users who only receive results at the end, the project is framed around engaging them throughout the process so that the final tools and products are relevant, trusted, and realistically adoptable. This approach is intended to improve the likelihood that forecasts and risk information will be integrated into planning and on-the-ground mitigation efforts.

Substantively, the research is expected to identify actionable decision points related to pest risk management, such as when and where monitoring should be intensified, when interventions are most effective, how to prioritize limited resources, or how to communicate risk to affected communities. The project should culminate in a scalable decision-support system along with supporting information products. "Scalable" implies the system should be designed so it can be expanded across geographies, pests, forest types, or management units, rather than being a one-off prototype narrowly tailored to a single site. The decision-support element also suggests outputs should be organized in ways that support choices, such as dashboards, hazard maps, forecast-based alerts, or structured guidance that links forecast conditions to recommended management actions.

A specific technical component highlighted in the description is the application of phenological forecasts to hazard assessments. Phenology refers to the timing of biological events, such as insect emergence, tree budburst, or other seasonal life-cycle stages that influence pest dynamics and host vulnerability. By integrating phenological forecasts into hazard assessment, the project is expected to improve outbreak risk mitigation by better aligning management actions with the timing of key pest or host events, which can be critical for surveillance, treatment windows, or targeted outreach. In practice, this could mean improving the timing of monitoring efforts, anticipating periods of heightened susceptibility, or forecasting when outbreak conditions are most likely to escalate.

Finally, the opportunity includes a methodological and programmatic goal beyond the immediate forest pest application: the project should develop and test indicators of successful knowledge co-production. In other words, it should not only do co-production but also measure whether it worked and how to tell. These indicators could relate to the quality and continuity of stakeholder engagement, the degree to which stakeholder needs are reflected in the tools, adoption or intent-to-use by managers, improvements in decision confidence, or the usability of products under real-world operational constraints. USGS indicates that these indicators should be designed with potential transferability in mind, so they can be applied to other USGS Risk projects in the future.

In terms of funding, the award ceiling listed is $65,000, with one expected award. Eligibility is limited to CESU partners, with the announcement listing eligible applicants as "Others" and directing applicants to additional eligibility details in the full notice. Overall, the opportunity is a relatively small, targeted research award aimed at producing practical, stakeholder-informed forecasting tools and a decision-support framework to improve pest outbreak risk management, while also generating reusable lessons and metrics about what effective science-to-decision co-production looks like.

• The Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Desert Southwest CESU" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.808.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 05, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 19, 2019. (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 $65,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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