FY2023 Scientific Cooperation Research Program | USDA FAS 10961 0700 10 23 0001

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FAS 10961 0700 10 23 0001

The FY2023 Scientific Cooperation Research Program (SCRP) is a USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) competitive grant opportunity designed to fund short, practical, joint projects between U.S. researchers and partners in selected emerging market economies. The program focuses on applied research, extension, and education that can produce real-world solutions for farmers, strengthen agricultural systems, and build regional or global trade capacity in the partner countries. SCRP projects are meant to mobilize scientific knowledge and existing technologies to address on-the-ground challenges rather than support long, open-ended research efforts. Historically, the program has supported roughly 10 collaborative projects per year, and since its start in 1980 it has funded hundreds of initiatives that build technical skills, expand professional networks, and deepen relationships between beneficiary countries and the U.S. agriculture sector.

A central requirement of the 2023 cycle is that every proposal must include a foreign collaboration, and the collaboration must be specific: the U.S. and foreign leads must be an established Mentor/Fellow pair from USDA/FAS's Borlaug International Agricultural Technology Fellowship Program. This requirement ties SCRP directly to the Borlaug Fellowship program by helping past fellows and mentors continue working together on concrete follow-on projects. The eligible foreign counterparts must come from selected emerging market economies as defined in U.S. law (7 USC 5623(d)(1)), which generally aligns with World Bank low- and middle-income country categories. Funding can be shared with foreign collaborators through subawards, which is important because it allows meaningful work to be conducted in-country rather than limiting spending to the U.S. institution.

Projects must be time-limited and targeted: they cannot exceed two years in duration. The subject areas are broad but clearly agriculture-centered, including topics such as agricultural trade and market access, animal and plant health, biotechnology, food safety and food security, climate-smart agriculture, and sustainable natural resource management. The common thread across these areas is usefulness and uptake, meaning the work should be positioned to generate outcomes that producers, institutions, and markets can actually adopt, such as improved practices, strengthened diagnostics or surveillance, better post-harvest handling, new training curricula, or approaches that support compliance with trade-related standards.

SCRP proposals are also expected to align with one or more strategies from the Global Food Security Act of 2016. In practice, this means projects should contribute to goals like inclusive agricultural-led economic growth that reduces poverty and hunger; improved productivity and livelihoods for small-scale producers (with special attention to women) across value chains and market access; greater resilience to food shocks that reduces reliance on emergency food assistance; stronger enabling environments for agricultural growth and investment (including transparent property rights); improved nutrition for women and children with an emphasis on reducing child stunting through nutritious foods, diet diversity, and better nutrition behaviors; and coordination with broader U.S. priorities in trade, economic growth, science and technology, agricultural research and extension, maternal and child health, nutrition, and WASH-related investments.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is listed as discretionary funding under the Department of Agriculture, with activity category Agriculture and CFDA number 10.961. Eligible applicants include public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, along with other entities as described in the opportunity's eligibility details. For FY2023, the award ceiling is $50,000, with an anticipated 12 awards. Key dates provided include a creation/posting date of March 8, 2023, and an original closing date of May 10, 2023. Overall, the program is structured as a small-grant, high-collaboration mechanism intended to translate prior Borlaug Fellowship relationships into focused, implementable outputs that advance food security, agricultural development, and trade capacity in partner countries.

• The Department of Agriculture, Scientific Cooperation and Research 10.961 in the agriculture sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY2023 Scientific Cooperation Research Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.961.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 08, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 10, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $50,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for USDA FAS 10961 0700 10 23 0001

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