CORDAP’s Coral Accelerator Program 2024

They are committed to creating impact, and innovation is especially crucial to filling the significant gap between current and required capabilities. Projects funded under this program are expected to lead to transformational discoveries, innovations, and improvements over the current state-of-the-art.  Proposals transcending different disciplines and fields are strongly encouraged and should include end-users and other stakeholders in the research, as well as the design and development of projects.

CORDAP will deliver technologies, methods, and processes that can be applied in coral conservation and restoration efforts across the world through existing, and new, national and international efforts. CORDAP is committed to the principles of co-design and a key criterion in their R&D proposal assessments will be whether suitable partners, groups and end users that can deploy the proposed technologies have been identified and engaged.

CORDAP, a G20 initiative, is the only international organization fully dedicated to funding research and development focused on tropical and cold-water coral conservation and restoration. The Coral Accelerator Program is guided by three core principles:

• Ensuring Local Community Benefits: Solutions developed must be affordable and accessible to those most in need.
• Global Inclusivity: Applicant teams must include organizations from at least two countries, one of which must be a low or middle-income country.
• Open Source Solutions: Intellectual property resulting from CORDAP-funded activities will be made available free under a public license for all commercial and non-commercial coral conservation use, enabling broader access and innovation.

Priority Areas

• The following are areas CORDAP considers ‘high need’:
  • Assisted Evolution
  • Aquaculture/Automation
  • Cold-Water Corals (CWC)
  • Preserve and conserve existing corals
  • Limit early life stage mortality
  • Intervention planning, risk, and monitoring
  • Blended artificial and natural reefs
  • R&D capacity development
  • Developing country R&D methods

Types of Project

• Novel R&D projects: These include the development and implementation of tools, technologies, methods, or whole new interventions designed to better protect, manage, adapt, or restore corals and coral reefs (innovations in coral and reef monitoring, threat reduction, assisted evolution, or restoration).  Given the objective of step changes, the program will require that new and innovative interventions be developed.
• Improving or scaling up existing interventions: This R&D will make a “significant” improvement to an existing intervention, technology, or method, including scaling up. These investments should be designed to create an immediate impact, with the possibility that the improvement can be implemented by existing restoration and adaptation projects. “Significant” is not fixed, but because current methods make impacts at orders of magnitude below their requirements they need to focus on major improvements.
• Translation R&D: This R&D adapts an existing technology or intervention to a different context. Technologies and interventions are developed based on local costs, technologies, and labor structures, and will need to be adapted to other socioeconomic conditions. This type supports the translation of R&D methods developed or in development from one context (location, sector, or industry for example) to another to assess their wider transferability.
• Foundation science to support implementation of interventions: As a mission-driven program, CORDAP typically does not invest in R&D outside of their mission. Nevertheless, there are critical gaps in fundamental knowledge that, if left unaddressed, could limit the impact or increase the risk of restoration and adaptation programs.
• This investment type accepts proposals to address these shortfalls, and may include:
  • Quantifying/understanding natural adaptation, coral demographics, and advanced taxonomy to aid intervention designs.
  • Novel ecosystem design for application where restoring corals and reefs to their former state is no longer feasible.
  • Models, decision systems, and monitoring technologies to assess risk and to guide deployments and improve effectiveness of deployment investments.
  • Cryopreservation (bio banking as an R&D or invention production tool).
• Proposals of this type must articulate how the research will directly inform the implementation of conservation tools, technologies, methods, or new interventions that better protect, manage, adapt, or restore corals and reefs.

R&D Capacity development and local innovation implementation: Because capacity to take on R&D in many areas is often limited to large-scale research facilities and some practitioner groups, this project type supports innovation by local NGOs, research organizations, and community groups of technologies that can improve, share and/ or scale up their ongoing efforts. This may also include funding for technology training or support for its application in new locations.

Funding Information

• Successful applicants will be awarded funding up to USD$ 1.5 million per project.
• The Award Term can be between a minimum of 12 months to a maximum of 36 months.

Eligibility Criteria

• Each application must consist of:
  • A minimum of 3 Applicants: one Lead Applicant and a minimum of two Co-Applicants.
  • Organizations from at least 2 different countries, one of which must be a low or middle-income country.
  • An individual can only be the Lead Applicant on one proposal and participate in up to a maximum of two additional proposals as a Co-Applicant.
  • Organizations can only be the Lead Organization on a maximum of two proposals but can be a participating organization on multiple proposals.
  • Eligible organizations include not-for-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, higher education institutions, research institutes, and government organizations in any country.
  • If a for-profit organization wishes to submit as an applicant, then they must be willing to co-invest to the point that they are not making a profit.
  • If the research activities are to take place in a third country (a country different from that of any of the applicants), it is strongly encouraged to have that country represented in the application.

For more information, visit CORDAP.