In June, the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) announced the recipients of its 2013 Research Alliance Collaborative Research Grants totaling $810,541. We’re proud to announce that University of Rhode Island scientists are collaborators on all six funded projects.

The awards will fund studies aimed at understanding and predicting how marine life and marine ecosystems will respond to climate variability. Eighteen scientists from five research institutions in Rhode Island, including 10 from URI, are among the awardees. The grants are the seventh round of awards aimed at facilitating collaborative research in Rhode Island and supporting STAC’s partnership with the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). To date, STAC has invested $8.5 million in projects that have returned $36 million back to the state in the form of grants for continued research, new federal programs, infrastructure improvements, commercialization of new products and venture funding for new companies.

The projects awarded during this grant cycle are studies of invasive algal marine bio-invaders for improved coastal management, aquaculture diseases wiping out starfish from New Jersey to the Gulf of Maine, marine communities’ response to ocean acidification, fisheries management, species adaption to warming local waters, and electro-microbiology.