Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

The U.S. Department of Commerce and NOAA have announced the launch of the “Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators program,” a $60 million investment in coastal resilience and American small businesses.

Funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, the new initiative seeks to foster public-private partnerships to help support small businesses that are developing sustainable technologies geared toward climate resilience to attract capital, mature their technologies, and scale their business models for climate impact.

The program is a two-phase competitive funding opportunity. Phase one, open for applications through September 11, will fund selected projects with up to $250,000 per project for accelerator program design. The second phase of the competition will invite all applicants selected in phase one to apply for funding of up to $10 million each to implement their program design.

“The outcome we’re expecting is an expansion of ocean enterprise public-private partnerships and sustainable business models for high-impact ocean-based climate technologies, products and services that can help tackle the twin goals of climate resilience and adaptation,” said Carl C. Gouldman, Director of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System Office.

The program will form partnerships with and fund eligible U.S.-based organizations to develop business accelerators to identify and support small businesses across the ocean-based climate resilience theme areas to attract capital, mature their technologies, and scale their business models for climate impact and economic prosperity. Those theme areas are:

• Ocean-based renewable energy;
• Coastal and ocean carbon sequestration monitoring and accounting;
• Hazard mitigation and coastal resilience;
• Ecosystems services, including change detection, change analysis, and change adaptation and mitigation; and
• Other ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes-based climate resilience theme areas as determined by the applicant.

The Notice of Funding Opportunity can be found here. Additional information is available on the U.S. IOOS website and includes forthcoming details on a public webinar for potential applicants.

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