FFAR
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We Establish Research Consortia
Open Opportunity
This opportunity is now closed
The Crops of the Future Collaborative is a public-private collaborative that convenes companies and global research organizations working to expand knowledge of traits and develop crop varieties that give rise to characteristics needed to adapt crops to a changing future. The Collaborative’s diverse participants represent many aspects of the agriculture industry, including seed companies, technology companies and other stakeholders from the value chain. Current participants include BASF, Bayer, Bejo Zaden, CIMMYT, Corteva Agriscience, Cotton Incorporated, E. & J. Gallo Winery, Enza Zaden, Gautier Semences, Inari, KeyGene, KWS, MARS, Michigan State University, Rijk Zwaan, Sakata Seed, Syngenta, Takii Seed, Tanimura and Antle, and Vilmorin-Mikado.
Collaborative participants jointly define the research issues, pool resources and knowledge and use the research outcomes to compete in the marketplace. The Collaborative awards grants to eligible applicants, providing multi-year grants. Funds are awarded for pioneering research on traits to meet global nutritional demands through crop resilience, crop diversity, cross-crop technologies and market development for new crops. Since its establishment, the Crops of the Future Collaborative has awarded $61 million in total funding across 13 grants, six of which have been completed as of March 2024, across the United States and Mexico. Awarded projects addressed topics like leaf blight and other crop diseases, improving protein content in crops and technologies to accelerate crop breeding.
FFAR seeks to evaluate the success of the Crops of the Future Collaborative. The evaluator, in collaboration with FFAR, will define criteria and standards of success before finalizing the proposal and contract. The evaluation should address project results and impacts, but not the Collaborative’s structure or management.
We foresee the evaluator using a mixed-methods approach to include interviewing project grantees, collaborative and project partners, matching funders and other project stakeholders for example, the projects’ target audiences. Given the Collaborative’s intended aims, the evaluator should also be qualified to quantify derived positive externalities of the work — such as improved farmer livelihoods or improved consumer nutrition connected to some of the projects.
The evaluator will need to collect other necessary data.
All proposals are to be submitted by Friday, June 21, 2024, at 5:00pm PDT. Proposals should be submitted as a Portable Document Format (PDF) via email to cgambino@foundationfar.org with the subject line “Crops of the Future Evaluation Proposal”.
FFAR welcomes individuals with the following expertise to apply: 1) plant genetics, crop improvement, biotechnology or plant pathology; 2) evaluation of agriculture research investments; or 3) evaluative methodologies. If beneficial to the success of the evaluation process, FFAR may match one or more individuals into a team.
FFAR’s impact team will hold a 30-minute screening call with select applicants to assess alignment of the applicant’s experience with FFAR’s needs.
FFAR will hold a 60-minute meeting, which will include a 20-minutes presentation and 40-minute panel interview, with finalists via video conference. The presentation should highlight the applicant’s approach, including the criteria and standards they envision being used to measure the success of projects and the Crops of the Future Collaborative as a whole. Additionally, the presentation should include a brief explanation of methods, followed by a showcase of how collected data may be visualized.
During the panel discussion, FFAR may ask finalists to clarify the methods they intend to use for data collection and analysis. Additionally, the panel may inquire about past projects and previous client relations to ensure the applicant and FFAR are a good fit.
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