Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with the Great Lakes-Northern Forest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit
USGS will fund a participating partner of the Great Lakes-Northern Forest CESU to develop authoritative knowledge infrastructure for the GeoAI application supporting the Intelligent National Map.
⚑ Eligible applicants must be a participating partner of the Great Lakes-Northern Forest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit. · Cooperative Agreement; award ceiling is $49,995.
Unit fits — one characterization, each unit's own rules
| Physical Sciences & Engineering (demo) | 75 strong | technical depth: central; funds applied research |
| IPPRA | 45 partial | portfolio topics: environment, water_resources, climate_weather; social/behavioral work is none; funds applied research; university can only partner, not lead; capped at 45 (limited social-science role) |
| Tom Love Innovation Hub | 45 partial | funds applied research; prototyping/demonstration stage; deep-tech content |
Description
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research focused on developing authoritative knowledge infrastructure for the GeoAI: Application, which will deploy agentic technology to support the Intelligent National Map (INM).
Eligibility
This financial assistance opportunity is being issued under a Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Program. CESU"s are partnerships that provide research, technical assistance, and education. Eligible recipients must be a participating partner of the Great Lakes-Northern Forest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit.
Apply
View on Grants.gov → CONTACT: Geological Survey <rachel_miller@ios.doi.gov>
Proposal brief SEE AN EXAMPLE →
A one-page internal memo: fit assessment, submission requirements, document scaffold, and next steps dated back from the deadline — tailored to your project idea if you add one.
Proposal shell · Federal (generic) conventions SEE A FEDERAL EXAMPLE →
Funder-faithful document skeletons — Federal (generic)'s document set with section headings, page limits, reviewer guidance, and writing prompts; add a project idea to get [DRAFT] starter bullets. Download as .md for Word or Overleaf.
Legacy IPPRA LLM assessment (v2.0, for comparison)
18/100 · gpt-5.4-mini · 2026-07-06
This is a technical USGS research project on GeoAI and National Map knowledge infrastructure, with only a light environmental-data-policy connection. It does not center on the human, behavioral, or policy research strengths that IPPRA would typically lead, and the opportunity is restricted to participating partners of the Great Lakes-Northern Forest CESU, so a public university is not broadly eligible unless already a named CESU partner.
Legacy scoring history
| 2026-07-06 | 18 | gpt-5.4-mini | This is a technical USGS research project on GeoAI and National Map knowledge infrastructure, with only a light environmental-data-policy connection. It does not center on the human, behavioral, or policy research strengths that IPPRA would typically lead, and the opportunity is restricted to participating partners of the Great Lakes-Northern Forest CESU, so a public university is not broadly eligible unless already a named CESU partner. |
| 2026-07-06 | 15 | gpt-5.4-mini | This is a mostly technical geospatial/AI infrastructure project for USGS, with no clear social science, behavioral, policy, or community-resilience component that matches IPPRA’s core strengths. It is also restricted to participating partners of the Great Lakes-Northern Forest CESU, so a public university could only apply if it is already an eligible CESU partner; otherwise eligibility would cap the score very low. |