The goal of the LSU Agriculture Collaborative Research Grant Program is to provide seed funds:

1) for the development of collaborative interdisciplinary teams

2) to develop strategic and large-scale grant proposals (> $1 million) for submission to federal agencies and funding programs

3) in areas that are aligned with the LSU Pentagon of Priorities and the LSU AgCenter focal research areas. There is currently $500K committed to this program for the coming year.

The core requirements for consideration are as follows:

• Principal Investigator must be a full-time tenured or tenure track faculty member in the College of Agriculture or the LSU AgCenter. Other eligibility requirements may be applied.
• The program requires qualified collaborators that are within the LSU System but outside of the LSU AgCenter or the LSU College of Agriculture (e.g. any LSU A&M College; LSU Health Science Center New Orleans; Pennington Biomedical Research Center; LSU regional institutions, etc.).
• Projects must align to a specific RFP from a federal agency and/or program and should yield a final proposal submission requesting a minimum of $1 million, at least 50% of which will be project credit for the LSU AgCenter or College of Agriculture.
• Proposals must make the case that they align with one of the LSU Agriculture focal research areas (soil health, land and water management; crop genetics, plant breeding and plant health; livestock and wildlife animal management; invasive species management; precision agriculture; nutrition and food safety; biofuels, feedstocks and bioproducts) or the key funding priority of food systems security.
• Investigators can request up to $50,000 in seed money to support planning for these large-scale submissions. Requests for additional funds for projects that are exceptional in scope will be entertained.
• Proposal requests should focus on team formation, development of preliminary evidence needed, and/or logistical support to prepare a major proposal submission.
• F&A is not charged to the seed grant.
• Detailed submission requirements for this funding request are intentionally omitted to encourage innovation in the planning process.
• Proposals will be evaluated based on originality, relevance to LSU Agriculture focal research areas, transformative potential, promotion of authentic collaborations across LSU units, and expected competitiveness.
• Requests should be emailed to OVP@agcenter.lsu.edu and at a minimum contain the following:
  • Names and affiliations of investigators
  • Target federal funding opportunity, anticipated award sizes, and whether or not program is limited submission (attach information on funding program as addendum)
  • Proposed topic and intellectual merit, alignment to target federal opportunity, budget and justification. Investigators should delineate the distinguishing features of their project that they anticipate will yield a compelling and highly competitive federal submission.

Research Proposals Funded in 2023

• Multi-omic Analysis of the Conceptus from Obese vs. Healthy Mothers (Lead P.I. – Constantine Simintiras)
• Microscopy Upgrade for Modeling Endometrial Gland Formation and Behavior in Health and Disease (Lead P.I. – Constantine Simintiras)
• Advancing Global Aquatic Germplasm Repositories Through Custom Microdevices (Lead P.I. – Terrence Tiersch)
• The Generation of Tools for Depot-Specific Manipulation of Adipose Tissue Accumulation (Lead P.I. – Xing Fu)
• Mechanisms Responsible for Differential Fat Accumulation in Different Adipose Depots Between Wagyu and Brahman Cattle (Lead P.I. – Xing Fu)
• Tea Sensory Quality Research to Improve National Competitiveness (Lead P.I. – Yan Chen)
• Oocyte Maturation: Metabolic Differences Between In Vivo and In Vitro Maturation and Improved In Vitro Maturation (Lead P.I. – Ken Bondioli)
• In Vitro and In Vivo Testing of an mRNA Vaccine Against Anaplasma marginale (Lead P.I. – Richard Cooper)
• A Large Animal Model of Preexisting Obesity as a Contributing Factor to Impaired Placental Development (Lead P.I. – Oberhaus)