Effective Gulf restoration and management requires a collective shift from isolated research projects to a better coordinated, long-term regional synthesis enterprise. This presentation details the evolution of the Florida RESTORE Act Centers of Excellence Program (FLRACEP) and its 2024–2034 Strategic Plan that further prioritizes dynamic management and synthesis. Grounded in the findings of the FLRACEP Decadal Review, this presentation will review how over 20 multidisciplinary projects focused on science, technology, and monitoring within three RESTORE Act-eligible disciplines have addressed post-spill knowledge gaps and advanced ecosystem and habitat modeling, observing technologies, and long-term time series monitoring of fisheries and other wildlife. These results informed the Plan’s objective of generating long-term understanding of the West Florida Shelf and connected systems to support improved management, with an emphasis on closer collaboration between Centers of Excellence, process-focused ecosystem-scale research, and co-production with managers and end-users to better translate science into management action. This Plan guided the design of the recently awarded RFP V, a targeted $4.2M investment in the De Soto Canyon and West Florida Shelf that directly promotes and operationalizes regional synthesis through research on topics such as physical–biological coupling, vertically migrating prey dynamics, and connectivity from the coast to the deep sea. New requirements for manager engagement and co-production of application-driven products aim to ensure scientific outputs that directly translate into restoration actions. Finally, we identify some remaining geographic and thematic gaps that could be addressed by Gulf restoration programs to help build a collective, synthesis-driven framework.