CORDAP Funding Awards

G20 CORDAP is committed to making an impact in filling the gap between current and required capabilities when it comes to saving tropical coral reefs and cold-water corals.

Through our funding awards, CORDAP encourages the best minds worldwide, in a transdisciplinary approach, to propose ideas and concepts that will accelerate international research and development to supply the technologies and innovations required to secure a future for corals.

Closed Now: Coral Accelerator Program (CAP) 2023 

The Coral Accelerator Program (CAP) will fund international collaborative teams with impactful ideas in coral conservation and restoration. Awards will span across the full range of novel early-phase projects through to final proof-of-concept development and testing.

After going through the review process, selected projects will receive funding based on the expectation that their proposal will quickly lead to significant discoveries, innovations and improvements in current tropical coral reefs and cold-water corals protection and restoration.

We encourage teams with ideas and concepts that transcend different disciplines and fields to participate. This includes end users in the research, design, and development of projects.

Successful applicants will be awarded funding up to USD$ 1.5 million per project which can last from one to three years.

The deadline for Concept Note Submissions was November 10, 2023, at 17:00 UTC.

Eligibility and criteria

With CAP, we seek proposals that focus on advancing the next generation of science and technology to help save corals and reefs. We are looking for projects with the potential to create a significant global impact. We strongly encourage the engagement and inclusion of users of the proposed project outputs in the proposals. An additional and important aspect is that the proposed technologies can be scalable and affordable to those needing them most.

CORDAP awards can also be used to increase support for and complement the vital existing work being carried out at national, regional and international levels.

The awarded projects can span across the full range of novel early-phase projects through to final proof-of-concept development and testing.

CAP funds International teams, each application must consist of:

  1. A minimum of 3 Applicants: one Lead Applicant and a minimum of two Co-Applicants, and
  2. Organizations from at least 2 different countries, one of which must be a low or middle-income country. The OECD List of low and middle-income countries should be used to determine eligibility.
  • 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.

**Please note that CAP awards cannot go directly to individuals. There is no upper limit to the number of organizations in an application.

Project duration

The Award Term can be between a minimum of 12 months to a maximum of 36 months.

Funding

Successful applicants will be awarded funding up to USD$ 1.5 million per project.

Types of projects considered and program priority areas

Types of projects supported in this call

  • Novel R&D projects
  • Improving or scaling up existing interventions
  • Translation R&D
  • Foundation science to support the implementation of interventions
  • R&D capacity building and local implementation

II. Program priority areas

The following are areas CORDAP considers ‘high need’:

  • Assisted Evolution (click here for the Technology Roadmap (22MB), Web Optimized version (7MB))
  • Aquaculture / Automation (click here for the Topic Guidance)
  • Cold-Water Corals (CWC)*
  • Preserve and conserve existing corals
  • Limit early life mortality
  • Blended artificial and natural reefs
  • R&D capacity building
  • Developing country R&D methods

* For the purposes of this call, ‘Cold-Water Corals’ describes all corals that do not harvest light (azooxanthellate), indicating the absence of symbiotic dinoflagellates commonly found in “shallow” and “warm” water corals. This definition would typically include deep/cold water corals and exclude the majority of corals found shallower than 30 m depth, while acknowledging the possibility of exceptions to this general classification in biology.

Timeline and deadlines

CORDAP Awards Open for Submissions September 11, 2023
Q&A Webinar (Register here) September 28, 2023, 06:00 UTC
Q&A Webinar (Register here) September 28, 2023, 15:00 UTC
Concept Note Submission Deadline November 10, 2023, 17:00 UTC
Anticipated Concept Note Notification Date December 22, 2023
Anticipated Full Proposal Deadline February 22, 2024
Anticipated Applicant Notification Date
July, 2024

Call documents

Documents listing:

  • CAP 2023 Call for Proposals
  • Concept Note Submission Form Template
  • Concept Note Budget Template
  • Statement of Intent to Collaborate (Required at Full Proposal stage)

Download the Call Documents – Zip File

Full Proposal Documents

Full Proposal Documents can be found on this page.

Funding policies

Documents listing:

  • CORDAP IP Policy
  • CORDAP Consortium Agreement Template (Required at Award stage)
  • CORDAP Open Access Policy
  • CORDAP Award Terms and Conditions (Award Manual)
  • CORDAP Data Privacy Note

    Download CORDAP’s Funding Policy Documents – Zip File

    Submission assistance

    Applicants are first directed to the CAP FAQ and Submission Assistance documents:

      CORDAP organized a webinar for Q&A. Watch the recording of the webinar:

      1. Webinar recording
      2. Webinar slides

      For queries not addressed in the sources or the webinars, please contact the CORDAP funding team at funding@cordap.org

      CORDAP Strategic Plan 2022-2025

      CORDAP Awards

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      Your contribution can fast-track research and development solutions to save the corals.

      Image: Qui Nguyen