Membership

The Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (GC-CESU) provides research, technical assistance, and education to federal land management, environmental, and research agencies and their partners. The partners serve the biological, physical, social, cultural, and engineering disciplines needed to address natural and cultural resource management issues at multiple scales and in an ecosystem context. 

We work to:

• provide usable knowledge to support informed decision making;
• ensure the independence and objectivity of research;
• create and maintain effective partnerships among the federal agencies and universities and other partners to share resources and expertise;
• take full advantage of university resources while benefiting faculty and students;
• encourage the professional development of current and future federal scientists, resource managers, and environmental leaders; and
• manage federal resources effectively.

Membership Benefits:

Federal agencies gain access to top university scientists and other partner scientists in the region to expand their scientific capacity by building multi-disciplinary, multi-agency teams to solve problem related to their agency missions.  As an federal agency, you're able to broaden the scope of projects, have more collaboration with other federal agencies, universities, and to reduce costs with a pre-negotiated 17.5% overhead rate.

University and other natural resource partners benefit through by having access to federal resources to conduct projects of mutual interest, an improved way of doing business with streamlined contracting processes and, research and technical assistance opportunities for multi-agency research projects with increased collaboration.

Interested parties are welcome to contact the CESU Network National Office www.cesu.psu.edu or the Gulf Coast CESU director at any time with inquiries. The CESU director sets the deadline(s) for receiving applications (e.g., accepts new member applications throughout the year or on a semi-annual or annual basis). Currently, the GCCESU accepts applications throughout the year and processes them for member approval in April and October.

Additionally, the CESU director may invite an applicant to attend the annual CESU partner meeting for an in-person presentation and interview as part of the application process.