Alaska Sea Grant announces new projects supporting community-academic partnerships

By Molly R Cain | September 9, 2024
People smiling while standing on the banks of a river. Man pointing to salmon laying on plywood table explaining traditional knowledge to interns.
Sharing traditional knowledge of Chinook salmon. Graduate interns learning from subsistence harvesters on an interdisciplinary project in Tyonek, Alaska, combining traditional knowledge and genetics to understand the migration patterns of Chinook salmon. Photo courtesy of Davin Holen.

Alaska Sea Grant is excited to announce four new projects, with over $90,000 supporting the development of community-based research partnerships and engagement of communities on research teams. The projects are being funded through the Community Partnership Development competitive funding opportunity, a pilot initiative from Alaska Sea Grant that provides resources to build partnership capacity for future research.

“A commonly identified barrier to conducting community-engaged research is accessing funding for researchers and community members to build relationships which could lead to grant opportunities,” said Molly Cain, Alaska Sea Grant’s associate director for research. “We developed the Community Partnership Development seed grant opportunity to address this funding gap, with the goal that it leads to more equitable community partnerships, stronger research proposals, and more impactful research.”

The new projects will kick off this fall, each with the goal of preparing community-academic teams to successfully collaborate on the design of future research projects related to improving understanding and management of Alaska’s coastal, marine, and watershed resources. Common project activities include collaborative workshops and meetings bringing together researchers and community members to identify questions, needs, and future research goals. General topic areas include effects of beaver expansion on fish in the Arctic, genetic approaches for monitoring salmon, linking fisheries heritage research to pathways for sustainable fishing in the future, and landslide hazard monitoring.

Summaries of each of the funded projects and project teams are available on the Alaska Sea Grant research web page, and at the links below.

Connecting with Regional Partners in Support of Environmental DNA Genetics Curriculum for Workforce Development

Co-Planning Coastal Research with the Old Harbor Community

Forging community partnerships to study beaver effects on subsistence fishes in Arctic Alaska

Supporting the Ḵutí and EPSCoR Research Partnerships on Jilkaat Aani

Posted in news