Purpose: The
U.S/ Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute for Food and
Agricultures (NIFA) announces the FY 2021 Equipment Grant Program (EGP) to
increase access to shared special purpose equipment/instruments for
fundamental and applied
scientific research for use in the food
and agricultural sciences programs in our Nation's institutions of higher
education, including State Cooperative Extension Systems. The program seeks to
strengthen the quality and expand the scope of fundamental and applied research
at eligible institutions, by providing organizations with opportunities to
acquire one shared-use piece of equipment/instruments that supports their
research, research training, and extension goals of the organization that may be
too costly and/or not appropriate for support through other NIFA grant programs.
An
instrument acquired with support from the EGP program is expected to be fully
operational by the end of the award period. The program does not fund research
projects, including research that uses the equipment acquired with support from
the program, and the program does not support the operation and maintenance of
facilities.
Note: The EGP has
nocostmatching requirement.
Eligible
instrumentation:
a single, well-integrated piece of
equipment/instrument. Well-integrated means that the ensemble of equipment that
defines the instrument enables specific fundamental or applied research
experiments in the food and agricultural sciences, including data science and
data systems, programs to be undertaken; separating or removing an element or
component of such an integrated instrument would preclude that research from
occurring or succeeding.
Ineligible
instrumentation: suites of equipment
to outfit research laboratories/facilities or to conduct independent
experiments simultaneously. Similarly, the EGP does not fund common, general
purpose ancillary equipment that would normally be found in a laboratory and/or
is relatively easily procured by the organization or through other NIFA grant
programs. Rather, it is intended to help fund items of equipment that will
upgrade infrastructure.
Funding
Amount/ Project Period:
$25,001 to $500,000 total
costs for up to 3 years
Link
to Funding Opportunity Announcement
Institutional
Limit: 2
Internal
Competition: To
participate in the university’s selection process,please
submit the following, assembled
into a single PDF file, to the Office of the Vice President for Research
via this
portal, with a copy to your Associate Dean for
Research by February 9, 2021:
·
Names and departments or affiliations of
the Project Director and other key personnel or partners
·
Title of program and/or funding
opportunity announcement number
·
Brief project description, including
plans to maintain and operate the instrument for a community of users (2 pages
maximum)
·
Brief biographical
sketch
A committee
will be convened to review the material and make a recommendation. For questions
or issues with submission through the portal, email the limited submission
mailbox (limitedsubmissions@uky.edu), or call 257-2861.
Agency
Deadline: March 16,
2021