Help ensure Specialty Crop Research Initiative funding is addressing your sector's most critical needs
NIFA is recruiting industry representatives to review pre-applications for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI).
Specialty Crop Research Initiative grant applications are required to be reviewed by stakeholders from the industry (growers, processors, packers, shippers, grower group staff, etc.) to make sure that the application is relevant to the industry. This is an opportunity for commodity sectors to ensure that SCRI projects are meeting their priorities, and is a critical component of ensuring SCRI projects are tackling a critical need for the sector.
What is required:
- Read and evaluate up to 15 Stakeholder Relevance Statements (SRS) and submit reviews in NIFA’s online Peer Review System. There is no need to travel to participate.
- Participate in a review panel conference call of approximately two hours to agree on ranking of proposals with each topic group.
- The estimated time commitment is between 10 and 15 hours.
When:
- February - March
Who:
- Growers
- Processors, packers, or shippers of specialty crops
- Staff from organizations that represent growers
- Other stakeholder experts
If you're interested, please reach out to Jessica Shade, Megan O'Reilly, and Tom Bewick with the following information:
- First and last name
- Email to be used for review purposes
- Physical business address that includes zip code
- Phone number
- Organization name
- Job title
- Keywords indicating areas of expertise, chosen from the following list:
- Berries
- Citrus
- Cucurbits
- Sweet corn
- Controlled Environment/Greenhouse crops
- Grapes
- Nursery/Floriculture
- Food Safety
- Pollinators
- Potatoes
- Solinaceae
- Strawberries
- Tree fruit (not including citrus)
- Tree nuts
- Turfgrass
- Beans/dry beans/pulses
- Leafy vegetables
- Underground vegetables (other than potatoes)
- Other crop (please specify)
Please note: Those who are part of a team submitting a proposal to SCRI this year cannot serve on the relevancy review team. If you are interested in participating in future years, contact the staff members listed above, and you will be added to a database of potential reviewers.
