Technological Advancements Derived from NOAA Ocean Exploration's Competitive Grant Program

NOAA Ocean Exploration is dedicated to exploring the unknown ocean through scientific discovery, technological advancements, partnerships, and efficient data delivery. One mechanism NOAA Ocean Exploration uses to address this mission is by funding projects through its annual competitive grant program. Since 2001, the NOAA Ocean Exploration competitive grant program has supported more than 280 projects across themes including ocean exploration, technology, and maritime heritage. Through the competitive grant program, NOAA Ocean Exploration has funded diverse partners, including individuals across academia, private sector, tribal and Indigenous communities, and governmental entities, to fill gaps in our understanding of the ocean and Great Lakes. By using diverse tools and technologies to explore previously unexplored areas of the ocean, competitive grant recipients have developed technologies and workflows to advance ocean sensing for a range of topics. Examples of recent projects include the development of novel in situ sensors (e.g., nitrogen and methane) in addition to advancements to technologies and workflows for environmental DNA (eDNA) analyses, including the development of an in situ water collection system for sampling microbes and eDNA from depths below 8,000 meters, and designing a framework for eDNA metabarcoding as a standard ocean exploration tool by quantifying, predicting, and testing the temporal persistence of eDNA in deep-sea environments. Additional projects supported by NOAA Ocean Exploration's competitive grant program have developed and used novel acoustics systems to monitor midwater environments, including developing a towed system outfitted with a side-looking, split-beam echosounder for high-resolution acoustic and environmental sampling of midwater biomass; using of glider-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) to detect and quantify midwater organism biomass and movement; and integrating high-resolution, wideband echosounders on ocean gliders with “on-board” data processing to adaptively monitor migrating mesopelagic organisms. These projects provide just a few examples of how NOAA Ocean Exploration's competitive grant program is supporting advances to ocean exploration and sensing. The work completed as a part of these projects can further serve to advance science in the field due to the program's efforts to improve data accessibility. In accordance with the 2013 and 2022 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandums to increase access to the results from federally funded research, NOAA Ocean Exploration has partnered with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) to improve the data archival, accessibility, and discoverability of projects that have been funded through the NOAA Ocean Exploration competitive grant program. The data derived from grant-funded projects are made publicly accessible through PARR (Public Access to Research Results)-compliant, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data repositories, allowing the public and scientific community to broadly benefit from the projects. As a part of this effort, NOAA Ocean Exploration and NCEI have developed project landing pages that provide a one-stop-shop for accessing project information, data and products generated by grant-funded projects, and data citation information. In this paper, we will discuss the breadth of work that has been funded through the competitive grant program, highlight several of the outcomes from previously funded projects, and provide information about how to access data from these projects. By promoting collaborative work through technological developments and advancements, NOAA Ocean Exploration's competitive grant program strives to better understand our changing environment and enhance appreciation of the importance of the ocean in our everyday lives and for the future.