Request for proposals for Water Seed Grant Initiative for FY 20-21 announced

Texas A&M AgriLife Research (AgriLife Research), Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service (AgriLife Extension) and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) are requesting proposals for multidisciplinary teams within the three agencies to research, develop and deploy innovative technologies and management approaches to improve the use, and increase the value, of water to support agricultural and municipal communities across Texas.

The FY2020-21 Water Seed Grant Initiative, “Research, Engineering and Extension: Creation and Deployment of Water-Use Efficient Technology Platforms,” is seeking proposals that focus on water technologies and management approaches that  

• increase the value of water used to produce agricultural food and fiber crops;
• increase the ability of municipalities to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6;
• decrease the per capita water use in rural and municipal communities; and
• decrease the cost of water supplies used for agricultural, rural and municipal purposes.

The agencies strongly encourage the creation and use of new technologies, such as sensor networks, precision irrigation, autonomous systems, information management systems and other computational methods and tools. The projects should assess the ability to implement these new systems based on work force expertise, existing infrastructure, regulatory constraints and economic realities. The purpose of this initiative is to provide resource investments to develop long-term relationships with water management agencies and seed larger project efforts that address high priority water availability and security issues for Texas.

Projects will be funded for 20 months beginning Jan. 1, 2020 for $200,000 per year, not to exceed $330,000 per project.

The principal investigator must hold an appointment in either AgriLife Research, AgriLife Extension or TEES, and the multidisciplinary teams must include investigators from all three agencies. Participants from other Texas A&M University colleges can also be included in the proposal if their involvement is deemed necessary to the project’s success.  

Read the RFP for more details, including proposal format, eligibility, how to find collaborators, the review process and more.

Proposals in PDF format are due at 5 p.m. on Nov. 1 to Danielle Kalisek, Texas Water Resources Institute grant administrator, at Danielle.kalisek@ag.tamu.edu. For more information, contact Dr. John Tracy, Texas Water Resources Institute director, at john.tracy@ag.tamu.edu or Kalisek.

Request for Proposals (PDF)

Budget Information

Proposals due at 5 p.m. on Nov. 1 to Danielle Kalisek,  Danielle.kalisek@ag.tamu.edu.

For more information, contact Dr. John Tracy, john.tracy@ag.tamu.edu or Kalisek.