2024 SPSD Collaborative Soil Survey Research | USDA NRCS NHQ SPSD 24 NOFO0001368

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA NRCS NHQ SPSD 24 NOFO0001368

The 2024 SPSD Collaborative Soil Survey Research opportunity is a competitive federal funding program run by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), specifically its Soil and Plant Science Division (SPSD). It is designed to support cooperative research agreements that strengthen U.S. soil survey work by improving the underlying science, tools, and datasets used to map, interpret, and communicate soil information. The core expectation is that funded projects will not be academic research in isolation; they must directly inform and improve NRCS soil survey products and workflows, and they must produce concrete deliverables whose value to soil survey is clearly spelled out.

A central requirement is meaningful collaboration with NRCS soil survey personnel. Applicants are expected to work closely with staff at places like the National Soil Survey Center (NSSC), MLRA Soil Survey offices, or NRCS regional offices, and to demonstrate that this partnership is built into the project (not added as an afterthought). Projects that support Dynamic Soil Survey research, particularly those developed in close coordination with NSSC Research Soil Scientists, receive additional consideration. NRCS is looking for work that can be applied nationally or across broad regions, especially research that fills gaps in existing soil survey databases, introduces better ways to collect or interpret soil survey data, or addresses emerging issues tied to national soil survey research priorities developed through the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) Research Priorities Committee.

The program’s requested research topics fall into three major priority areas. The first is Dynamic Soil Properties (DSPs) and Soil Change, which includes studying dynamic properties not currently included in decadal-scale soil change evaluations, assessing DSPs in forest soils, and building digital soil mapping models that can predict dynamic properties across both space and time. The second priority area is Methods of Soil Hydrology, focused on developing new field or lab methods that could be incorporated into soil survey practice, improving or expanding methods for characterizing soil hydraulic properties like water retention and hydraulic conductivity (including approaches that can leverage existing soil survey data), and improving how hydrologic tools and datasets are communicated to end users, especially people who are not soil scientists. The third area is Expansion of Datasets, emphasizing projects that combine or leverage NRCS and outside datasets to extend soil survey usefulness (for example, adding information at deeper depths or filling spatial gaps), creating an online mapping tool or repository that tracks soil survey projects and outputs, and improving compatibility between soil survey data and major external datasets or networks such as NEON, the Molecular Observation Network, or the USGS National Geothermal Data System.

Funding is expected to total up to about $3,000,000 across awards, depending on availability. Individual awards are anticipated to range from a federal share of $50,000 (floor) to $500,000 (ceiling), and the project period is expected to be 2 to 3 years. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which typically implies substantial federal involvement compared with a standard grant. The opportunity forecasts about 20 expected awards. The assistance listing is CFDA (Assistance Listing) 10.902, and the opportunity is posted under Funding Opportunity Number USDA NRCS NHQ SPSD 24 NOFO0001368.

Eligibility is limited and specific: only institutions of higher education that are part of the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) National Network are eligible to apply. Applications must be submitted through Grants.gov by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on July 8, 2024. NRCS notes that agency staff will not help troubleshoot Grants.gov account or submission issues; applicants must use Grants.gov Applicant Support for technical problems. For questions about the Notice of Funding Opportunity itself, the agency will only address narrow clarification questions tied to the published requirements (like conflicting dates or instructions), not proposal strategy, eligibility hypotheticals, or feedback on the strength of an idea.

The timeline shared in the announcement estimates that NRCS will make selections by July 22, 2024, and execute awards by September 30, 2024, though both dates are subject to change. The program also underscores federal open data expectations: every proposal must include a data management plan, and all data and deliverables produced under the award must be made publicly available in line with USDA public access and data sharing regulations (referenced via USDA Departmental Regulation 1020-006). Applicants looking to strengthen their administrative readiness are also pointed to free “Grants 101” federal financial assistance training that covers the core legal, administrative, cost, and audit topics that commonly apply to federal assistance awards.

• The Natural Resources Conservation Service in the agriculture, environment, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "2024 SPSD Collaborative Soil Survey Research" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.902.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-06-05.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-07-08. (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 $500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 20 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for USDA NRCS NHQ SPSD 24 NOFO0001368

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