The National Geospatial Programs Office (NGPO) of the U.S. Geological Survey recently announced the availability of the 2005 Cooperative Agreements Program (CAP). The CAP provides seed funds to assist organizations in their work with geospatial information technologies.
CAP grants are open to federal, state, local and tribal governments, academia, commercial, and non-profit organizations. The program emphasizes partnerships, collaboration and the leveraging of geospatial resources in order to initiate sustainable National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) implementations.
A total of approximately $1.3 million will be distributed for selected proposals addressing geospatial issues in 4 categories. These include:
- Category 1: Metadata Trainer and Outreach Assistance
- Category 2: Establishing Framework Data Services
- Category 3: Geographic Information Coordination
- Category 4: Geographic Information Integration & Analysis
The deadline for proposals is June 16, 2005, 2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time. Proposals must be submitted using the procedures found at the federal grant submission portal: http://www.grants.gov/. A note of warning, there were a number of problems encountered last year when attempting to use this mechanism for the first time. If you are thinking of submitting a proposal, plan ahead for potential system issues.
The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) is leading the development of the NSDI in cooperation with organizations from State, local and tribal governments, the academic community, and the private sector. The NSDI encompasses policies, standards, and procedures for organizations to cooperatively produce and share geographic data.
Official points of contact for the CAP are:
1) David Painter, CAP Coordinator, Phone (703) 648-5513, e-mail: dpainter@fgdc.gov
2) Desiree Santa, Grant Specialist, Phone (703) 648-7382, e-mail: Dsanta@usgs.gov
If you would like to speak with someone locally, you may contact Dick Vraga, USGS, (608) 238-9449, rsvraga@usgs.gov or Jim Lacy, Wisconsin State Cartographer’s Office, (608) 262-6850, lacy@wisc.edu.