Specialty Crop Research Initiative Pre-Applications

Background
The Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) aims to address the critical needs of the specialty crop industry by awarding grants to support research and extension that address key challenges of national, regional, and multi-state importance in sustaining all components of food and agriculture, including conventional and organic food production systems. The program recognizes that for some specialty crops which are grown in a limited number of states, the multi-state nature of projects can be difficult to address. The SCRI program only considers projects that integrate research and extension activities.

Grant Details
The SCRI program offers three project types in FY 2023: Standard Research and Extension Projects (SREPs), Coordinated Agricultural Projects (CAPs), and Research and Extension Planning Projects. The pre-application deadline is January 12, 2023. Applicants will compete for the SCRI program in two stages. Applicants will be required to submit a pre-application containing a Stakeholder Relevance Statement (SRS). The content required in an SRS includes the title of the project, keywords, type of planning activity to be undertaken, estimated amount of funding to be requested, names and affiliations of project director and collaborators, description of the stakeholder problem being addressed, relevant expertise represented by project team, planning activities to be undertaken, expected outcomes of the planning process, benefits to growers/processors/consumers, and letters of collaboration from all known industry stakeholders.

Eligibility Requirements
Pre-applications may only be submitted by Federal agencies, national laboratories, colleges and universities, research institutions and organizations, private organizations or corporations, State Agricultural Experiment Stations, individuals, or groups consisting of two or more of these entities.

Period of Performance
The project period varies based on the project type: Up to four years for SREPs and CAPs; one year for Research and Extension Planning Projects.

Grant Value
$80 million is anticipated to be available for support of this program in FY 2023. The total multi-year funding for most funded SREP awards for FY2023 is expected to be close to the historical median with mean award at $2,461,152 and median award at $2,032,727.