May 10, 2016 — Researchers at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science have earned nearly $6 million in set-aside funding to advance the understanding and management of sea scallops off the U.S. East Coast. These tasty bivalves support one of the nation’s highest-valued commercial fisheries.
Announced by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the New England Fishery Management Council, the awards to VIMS account for six of the 15 research projects funded. Senior Research Scientist David Rudders is lead investigator on five of the six VIMS projects and a co-lead on the other one.
Support for the projects comes from the 2016 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) program, which derives its funds by setting aside a portion of the annual sea scallop allocation to use as financial support for a competitive grant program. Unique to federal fisheries in the northeast region, RSA programs use no federal funds. Instead, successful applicants partner with the fishing industry to both conduct the research and harvest the set-aside award to generate funds for the research.
This year, program administrators received more than 30 proposals, including half a dozen two-year projects. The proposals were evaluated and ranked based on a two-stage review process that considered both technical merit and responsiveness to New England Fishery Management Council research priorities.