Pooled Monitoring Initiative’s Restoration Research Award Program
Pooled Monitoring Initiative’s Restoration Research Award Program supports researchers studying watershed restoration to improve practices, inform regulation, and strengthen environmental outcomes.
Funder: Chesapeake Bay Trust
Due Dates: January 28, 2027, 4 pm EST (Application) | December 11, 2026, noon–1 pm EST (Information session) | January 8, 2027, noon–1 pm EST (Information session)
Funding Amounts: Approximately $1,988,000 total; literature reviews up to $50,000; research projects uncapped, with project-specific durations
Summary: Supports applied research resolving practical questions about watershed restoration effectiveness, emerging pollutants, social science, and ecological trade-offs.
Key Information: Organizations may be based outside Maryland, but proposed work must benefit Maryland’s restoration, regulatory, or practitioner communities.
Description
The Chesapeake Bay Trust runs this collaborative research program with state, federal, and local funding partners. The Pooled Monitoring Initiative connects questions raised by restoration practitioners and regulators with researchers who can produce findings for direct application. Its goals include increasing confidence in restoration outcomes, identifying suitable site conditions for restoration techniques, improving practice adoption, and informing permitting and monitoring.
The FY 2027 competition supports literature reviews, hypothesis-driven research, and regulatory or practitioner tools addressing the RFP’s priority questions. Topics encompass stormwater best management practice (BMP) effectiveness, watershed-scale outcomes, biological recovery, changing environmental conditions, emerging pollutants, social science, and restoration trade-offs. Research questions are updated as ongoing studies generate findings.
