USGS NLRSEORA Grant Objectives

  1. Conduct nationwide remote sensing, Earth observation, and Geospatial (RS/EO/GS) information gathering activities. Information gathering activities will occur at all levels (local, regional, and national), in all relevant industry and commercial areas, and within the academic and research spaces. These activities will provide user stories about specific RS/EO/GS use cases, novel applications and approaches, educational needs, and a continuing assessment of how value-added products and applications are supporting a wide variety of user communities.

  2. Establish strategic partnerships that encompass all communities that may benefit from the use of RS/EO/GS data, information, and applications. Strategic partnerships should focus on reciprocal benefits to and from the NLRSEORA grant by identifying key priorities, use cases, needs, and opportunities. Partnerships should be developed at all levels, but a focus on state and local partnerships to support the use of RS, EO, and GS in order to address local, state, or regional problems is strongly encouraged. Partnerships should be used to develop and deploy remote sensing applications, data, approaches, and educational resources to support all users.

  3. Promote projects and activities that enhance undergraduate and graduate education and research opportunities in RS/EO/GS.  These projects should tie to the development of strategic partnerships at the local, state, regional, or national levels. Projects should help facilitate overall numbers and visibility of students graduating with critical RS/EO/GS skills. Well-trained students help foster a skilled, well-trained, and technologically advanced workforce of the future.

  4. Develop materials and conduct outreach activities that address educational and training needs within the RS/EO/GS environments. These materials could include the development of curricula; dual-enrollment courses; community education programs; workshops; meetings and seminars (in-person and virtual); videos; online and massive open online courses (MOOCs); or other RS/EO/GS learning resources as identified.

  5. Support and further the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretarial Priorities as they relate to RS/EO/GS and the DOI/USGS National Land Imaging (NLI) program. View this link for current Interior Secretarial Priorities.