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Abstract Harnessing scientific research to address societal challenges requires careful alignment of expertise, resources, and research questions with real‐world needs, timelines, and constraints. In the case of place‐based research, studies can avoid misalignment when grounded in the realities of specific locations and conducted in collaboration with knowledgeable local partners. But literature on best practices for such research is underdeveloped on how to identify appropriate locations and partners. In practice, these research‐design choices are sometimes made based on convenience or prior experience—a strategy labeled opportunism. Here we examine a deliberative and exploratory approach in contrast to default opportunism. We introduce a general framework for scoping place‐based opportunities for research and engagement. We apply the framework to identify climate‐adaptation planning decisions, rooted in specific communities, around which to organize research and engagement in a large project addressing coastal climate risks in the Northeast US. The framework asks project personnel to negotiate explicit project goals, identify corresponding evaluation criteria, and assess opportunities against criteria within an iterative cycle of listening to needs, assessing options, prioritizing actions, and refining goals. In the application, we elicit a broad range of objectives from project personnel. We find that a structured process offers opportunities to collaboratively operationalize notions of equity and justice. We find some objectives in tension—including equity objectives—indicating trade‐offs that other projects may also need to navigate. We reflect on challenges encountered in the application and on near‐term costs and benefits of the exploratory process.