Author: traceyv

The IIPA is now soliciting applications for the FY2024 Integrative Precision Agriculture Pre-Seed Grant Program. The IIPA Pre-Seed Program provides early-stage developmental funding ($5,000/team) to facilitate the formation of faculty teams and collaboration around critical areas of research expertise or emerging research topics in the broad area of integrative precision agriculture (IPA). The goal of the pre-seed funding is to stimulate the formation of new interdisciplinary research teams that position UGA faculty to be competitive for attracting resources for collaborative research, including internal UGA seed grants and ultimately, external grant support.

The IIPA Pre-Seed Program provides early-stage developmental funding ($5,000/team) to facilitate the formation of faculty teams and collaboration around critical areas of research expertise or emerging research topics in the broad area of integrative precision agriculture (IPA). The goal of the pre-seed funding is to stimulate the formation of new interdisciplinary research teams that position UGA faculty to be competitive for attracting resources for collaborative research, including internal UGA seed grants and ultimately, external grant support. The Program is made possible through funding from the Office of Research, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the College of Engineering.

This funding level is insufficient to support research per se, however it may be used for team-building activities such as networking meals, part-time student support, group website development, and travel to meet with potential external collaborators or funding agencies. Faculty may not use this funding to work on a project that is already supported by university funds, directly or indirectly through a center/institute/program.

To be eligible for the program, teams require a minimum of six members across at least three different disciplines/academic units. Each team should be led by a tenure-track or tenured faculty member who is also a member of IIPA. It is strongly encouraged that teams include both members and non-members of the IIPA. Teaching, research and service faculty who are not tenure-track or tenured and not members of the IIPA may participate as team members. Faculty members may join multiple teams but can only be the team leader of one team. Once a research team’s application is approved, a lump sum of $5,000 will be transferred to the team leader for management. These funds are required to be expended within 12 months.

Applications for pre-seed funding require a name for the team, team lead and member names and their units, a brief description of its intended research focus and its relation to IPA, a visual representation or image of the research, and a list of team members. This information will be used to represent the team projects on the IIPA website.

The application window for the FY2024 program will open on 14 August 2023 and will close 13 September 2023 at 11:59 PM or when available funds are allocated. To apply, team leads need to complete and submit their team’s IIPA Pre-Seed application through InfoReady at https://uga.infoready4.com/#competitionDetail/1913517 using the “Apply” button.

Over the next year, the Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture (IIPA) will issue two separate calls for proposals, a Pre-Seed Program that provides early-stage developmental funding to support team-building (this program) and a Seed Grant Program that funds preliminary research or infrastructure-building (to be announced later this year).