Funding, News and Announcements

Agri-Science Cluster: Deadline extended until September 29, 2017 noon Eastern Time

Due to numerous requests received over the past week, BFN Canada has extended the deadline for the call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for its proposal to the Agri-Science Cluster program of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) until September 29, 2017 noon Eastern Time. Applicants who already submitted may update their proposal if they wish. 

BFN intends to apply to AAFC's AgriInnovation Program later in the fall. Through mutual agreement, your EOI may also be used in future BFN proposals to other funding programs, including those run by the Networks of Centres of Excellence.

The purpose of this new Agri-Science cluster is to engage Canada’s agricultural operators, industry, universities, government and other R&D organizations to sustainably increase food and biomass production, in the context of a changing climate.

This call for EOI is focussed on advancing the emerging technologies that will help agricultural producers across Canada sustainably meet the needs of Canada’s and the world’s growing population, and provide the biomass (crop residues, purpose-grown on marginal lands, animal residues) needed by the bioenergy and bioproducts industries.

The new cluster will bring together Canada’s considerable entrepreneurial and technological strengths to:

1.      Extend agricultural production to northern latitudes, by using advanced greenhouse technologies such as biomass combined heat and power (CHP) to extend the growing season, CO2 enrichment and biologicals to accelerate growth and improve stress resistance in plants being grown locally as biomass for the greenhouse operation.

2.      Increase agricultural production and reduce input costs by developing biologicals for Canadian applications on a range of important economic crops and biomass for bioenergy. The choice of biologicals must pass all government health and environmental assessment requirements.

3.      Increase agricultural production and reduce input costs by accelerating the uptake of advanced information technologies, including novel instrumentation, remote sensing, automation, precision farming, use of “big data”, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things etc., to increase the profitability of food and biomass production for the agricultural sector.

4.      Develop evidence-based agri-economic models, tools and policies to enable the agricultural sector to benefit from the emerging carbon markets.

This Call is open to companies incorporated in Canada at the federal or provincial levels, R&D organizations, universities, not-for-profit organizations, and individuals. Applicants are also encouraged to include self-funded participants such as municipalities, government research labs and international partners.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question 1:
For this call, is it a multi-stage process (e.g. there is the EOI stage and then researchers will be invited to submit a full proposal) or is the EOI, in fact, the full proposal stage?

Answer 1:
This EOI is the first stage of a two-stage process. The proposals from this EOI will help us gauge the breadth and scope of interest and determine the potential impact that we may have as a cluster.

Once the call for proposals is launched by AAFC, we will ask the proponents selected from this EOI to complete a full proposal according to AAFC’s instructions.

We may also, through mutual agreement, use the projects proposed in this EOI to develop proposals to other funding opportunities.

Question 2:
According to the call for expression of interest, the cluster is industry-led. Does this mean academic institutions should not submit projects or an EOI?

Answer 2:
The Agri-science cluster program favours multi-disciplinary teams working on industry-led activities. Although EOI activities may be put forth by non-industry applicants, the activities proposed must have at least one industrial champion, be a clear priority for industry and be co-funded by industry. The Agri-Science Cluster program requires that the cluster be industry-led and that industry provide 30% co-funding [updated].

Question 3:
Can colleges/college faculty submit an EOI for the Ari-science Cluster? If colleges/college faculty are eligible to receive funds, is salary replacement an eligible expense for college faculty? Generally college faculty are 100% teaching and their release time in order to participate in research is an expense.

Answer 3:
If successful, the AAFC contribution to the Agri-science Cluster program does permit work to be performed at colleges. The program would pay for actual incremental costs of performing the work. In the case of college faculty teaching staff who would be released to perform R&D, the program will pay for the lower of the teaching staff time or the replacement staff time.

More questions? Feel free to contact us
 
We thank in advance all who applied early.