Nominations open for 2024 food, ag research award

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) is accepting nominations for the 2024 New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award.

FFAR plans to grant up to 10 awards to early-career scientists pursuing research that supports FFAR’s research priority areas and promotes global, sustainable food production. Each applicant is eligible to receive up to $150,000 per year for a maximum of three years totaling $450,000, according to a news release.

“Often early-career scientists struggle to secure grant funding at the onset of their careers. The New Innovator in Food and Agriculture Research Award provides grantees the opportunity to focus exclusively on research without the pressure to secure additional funding for these ideas. This award provides early-career scientists with the investment needed to bolster their successful careers in food and agriculture. FFAR awards this unique grant to highly creative, promising scientists whose research has the potential to address major challenges facing food and agriculture,” organizers said in the release.

FFAR evaluates nominees to select diverse, collaborative, innovative and outside-the-box perspectives that will have a substantive impact on tackling today’s challenges in food and agriculture, according to the release.

The deadline for submitting nominations is Feb. 21. Complete submission guidelines and program deadlines are available on the FFAR website.

Individuals in institutions of higher education, nonprofit research institutions and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are encouraged to nominate one applicant who holds a tenure-track or equivalent position and meets the eligibility criteria specified in the Call for Nominations.

FFAR was established in the 2014 Farm Bill to increase public agriculture research investments, fill knowledge gaps and complement the USDA’s research agenda. FFAR builds public-private partnerships to fund bold research addressing big food and agriculture challenges.

More information is available here.