News from the National Sea Grant Office

News from the National Sea Grant Office

Northeast Sea Grant Consortium 2013 Meeting

November 19, 2013

Chris HayesProgram Officer

New National Website

Silver Spring Vibe

• Social Science is a priority and Sea Grant is a leader within NOAA.

• Community Resilience is all the rage.

• CR funds government operations through January 15, 2014 and suspends the debt limit through February 7, 2014.

Sea Grant’s BudgetFY2012 – $62.2MFY2013 – $57.3M

FY2014 – ??? ?

FY2014 Request House SenateOverall Total $72.2M $64.5M $72.2MBase 57.7 57.7 57.7Aquaculture -- 4.5 6.0Resilience Research 4.5 2.3 4.5STEM Education (4.0) -- --Grand Challenge 10.0 -- 4.0

Possible sequester implications- FY2014

FY2013 sequester pain was mitigated by FY 2012 $2.2M carryover. Not available for FY2014.

*If there is a full-year CR (level funding with FY2013) – – No social science ($1.7M)– No competitive community climate change adaptation projects

($0.5M)

*If there is additional sequestration starting on January 15 –– In addition to 1 and 2 above,– No climate change capacity building ($1.0M)– Reduction in base funding ($0.6M)

PIER Automatic Uploads

• Worked with eSG and other program reporting systems to automatically upload data via Excel spreadsheets

• Provided template for manually developing spreadsheets

• Upload to PIER is forthcoming

Committee Recommendations

• Presented at the SGA meeting in Mobile– Allocation– PIE Assessment– Performance Measures/Metrics

Thank You!

• Fantastic region

• Leverage NOAA and other regional partners

• Quality social science research

• Important component of Sea Grant’s social science portfolio

Reporting regional impacts via PIER

• Projects:

– Each program should include regional project in 90-2.– Regional projects should be flagged.– Other programs should be listed as partners.

Reporting regional impacts via PIER

• Funding:

– Actual funding sent from the NSGO should be reported (e.g., $0 or the project amount)

Reporting regional impacts via PIER

• Impacts and Accomplishments:

– Each program should report any accomplishments or impacts of a regional project.

– Programs have complete flexibility: • A well-crafted impact could be shared, • each program could write their own, • a shared impact could be tailored to each program, or • any combination thereof.

Reporting regional impacts via PIER

• Metrics and National Performance Measures:

– Avoid any duplication of reporting.

– Programs have complete flexibility: • Split evenly among programs.• Attribute based on location of impacts or accomplishments.

Ideas to improve reporting and evaluating regional impacts

• Enter the regional project into PIER one time and attribute all benefits to each of the programs (rather than have each program submit their portion of the project)

• PRP reports could have a separate section of regional activities– This would help with “grading” and evaluation and could account for the group sharing of metrics,

impacts, etc.)– Elevate importance of working regionally

• Include separate criteria to evaluate regional work or multi-sea grant work– There are great multi-sea grant efforts, whether they are within a region or across the country and I

think some of these “stories” are lost or not fully reported

• Knowing there is limited funding it may be helpful to have a matching program for the NOAA regional teams– It could be modest amounts but assist the teams in addressing regional priorities– These funds could go through NOAA to others within NOAA but labeled as “SG funds” and there

could be some potential cost savings

Sea Grant Extension Assembly & Communicators Conference

Mike Liffmann November 6, 2013

A tip of our hats to…• Our gracious PASG hosts—Ann, Eric and others• The “Fundamentals” handbook--Kathy et al.• The Academy– Logan, Dave and a large supporting

cast from MN and elsewhere• “Sandy” programs and our supportive network• Organizers of our professional meetings—Working

waterfronts/SCCD, fisheries extension, climate adaptation, WeTable, PPCP, CNREP, etc.

• Retired or moved on– Ken, Doug, Bob, Mike S., Logan, John J., Chuck

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 340%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Years of Experience of Sea Grant Directors

Years of Experience

Cum

ulati

ve P

erce

nt o

f Dire

ctor

s

50% of Sea Grant Directors are new in the past 4 years

Topics• FY2014 Budget Outlook• What’s ahead in 2014? Three committees:– Allocation– PIE Assessment– Performance Measures / Metrics

Aquaculture

• Folded into President’s budget; separate for House and Senate marks

• Research competition. Extension funded in 2010 and 2013.

Resilience Research • Purpose: “…developing more resilient coastal

communities and sustaining diverse and vibrant economies.”

• Specific areas of competitive research:Marine-related energy sources, wise use of water resources, climate change adaptation, coastal processes studies, resilience from natural hazards, technology development, resilient coastal businesses and industries (incl. tourism and fisheries)

STEM Education• Proposed to reorganize 114 STEM education

programs in 11 agencies and consolidate within DoEd, NSF and SI;

• Termination of Knauss Policy Fellows, NMFS Graduate fellowships, and SG STEM activities (K-12 teacher training, curricula development, education).

• Does not appear in House and Senate marks

Grand Challenge• In the field of ocean mapping and

observation;• Academic community and industry would

compete for $10M prize for new technologies that modernize at-sea research, monitoring and application methods.

You should also be interested in:

• Recommendations of :–PIE Process Assessment Committee;– Funding Allocation Committee;–Performance Measures & Metrics

Committee.• Network is commenting on

recommendations. See your director. • Final decisions by the end of this calendar

year

PIE Process Assessment Committee (AC-3)

• Chaired by SGAB member Dick Vortmann• Charge- develop an implementation strategy

for the principles enumerated by AC-2• Need-based formula devised summer 2013,

recommendations made to SGAB, submitted to SGA and widely discussed

• Comments sought. Get with your directors to gauge implications for your programs.

PIE Process Assessment Committee Recommendations

• PIE cycle successful but “too big and costly.”• Planning– better synching of national and

state plans; only seek approval for major plan changes

• Implementation- high expectations for focus teams have not been met, but tasks are important; find more efficient way

PIE Process Assessment Committee Recommendations (cont.)

• Evaluation- Integrate annual reviews, site visits, and an external evaluation panel into an overall four-year evaluation process;– “PRP be replaced by an external evaluation

panel.”– External evaluation panel to be comprised of

NSGAB, NOAA, other state/federal officials and academic/industry leaders.

PMs and Metrics• Intended to inform reporting of 2014

(reported in spring of 2015) performance measures and metrics.

• Proposed Performance Measure for each focus area—biggest changes for HCE and ELWD (new)

• Output metrics– very few changes• “Work in progress” per Chair Karl Havens

I’ll hand this over to Elizabeth..