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STRIKE Force: Strategic Teams for Regional Initiatives

GFSI STRIKE Force: Strategic Teams for Regional Initiatives

News! The deadline has been extended to November 15, 2023

2023 CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Global Food Systems Institute (GFSI) Helps You Get There! We support faculty, staff, students, and Extension professionals to engage in international work, including teaching, research, and outreach to strengthen human capacity for effective food systems, primarily in the Global South. We assist with project development, identification of funding opportunities, and developing multidisciplinary teams.

The purpose of this call for proposals is to recruit and support STRIKE Force teams, Strategic Teams for Regional Initiatives.

The teams should submit a proposal to create a working narrative for potential research, education, and/or Extension projects in one of the following regions:

  1. Caribbean
  2. Central America
  3. East, West, and/or South Asia
  4. Middle East and North Africa
  5. South America
  6. Sub-Saharan Africa

Justification and Assumptions for Creating the STRIKE Force Teams

In normal business operations, funding agencies issue Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) or Requests for Funding Applications (RFAs) with very short lead times to address large, complex, and multi-disciplinary projects. If faculty wait for issued RFA/NOFO before forming a team and writing a proposal, they are disadvantaged by the lack of lead time compared to groups who are already working together.

GFSI desires to create STRIKE Force Teams that can be ready to rapidly address and apply for funding opportunities ($1M USD or greater) when RFA/NOFO are issued. This can be achieved by building teams now that can identify and target possible opportunities, become familiar with each other’s skill sets, add complementary expertise including regional or foreign country partners, review previous pertinent RFAs, seek guidance from previous successful grantees, and draft a tentative working narrative, budget, and have personnel at the ready to address short lead-time RFA/NOFO. Given this context, GFSI assumes the following:

  • In normal business operations, project narratives address an issued RFA/NOFO; however, the purpose of the STRIKE Force teams is to get ahead of the curve by 1) creating teams that are ready to STRIKE at RFA/NOFO once announced, and 2) have a draft proposal ready to build upon once the RFA/NOFO is announced.
  • That the teams consist of interdisciplinary faculty and other professionals who have (or will develop) a clear vision for a project, specific and measurable (SMART) goals and objectives, a complete literature review, previous work to establish strong credibility, and a working budget. The draft narrative can then be parlayed into arising opportunities.
  • That a specific RFA/NOFO may never be announced during our timeline for a given region (within the next 2 years) in the proposed research/teaching/Extension focus areas. In that case, we would call on the team after the two-year period should an opportunity arise.
  • That this is a high-risk, high reward task. The team’s preliminary work in team formation and proposal writing should open possibilities for winning more grants overall because it is well positioned and prepared, rather than being caught flat-footed when a large RFA/NOFO emerges.
  • We are happy to discuss this opportunity with you! Please reach out to Andy Ogram (aogram@ufl.edu) or Kay Kelsey (kelsey@ufl.edu) and the webinar listed below.

Eligibility and Composition of the Team

  • All IFAS faculty and GFSI members from other colleges. The lead principal investigator (PI) must meet the UF Policy on PI eligibility to submit a proposal for external funding: https://research.ufl.edu/dsp/proposals/eligibility-to-submit-a-proposal-for-external-funding.html and be a member of IFAS.
  • Faculty with adjunct appointments may be listed as Co-PIs.
  • The team should consist of a mix of faculty of different ranks among other professionals.
  • Multi-disciplinary teams representing two or more colleges are encouraged but not required.
  • Experience and expertise in the region of interest.
  • Previously funded UF Global Fellows/Fulbright Scholars/PDL faculty are encouraged to apply.
  • We are not able to award funding for travel to, or research in, countries of concern specified in the 2023 Florida bill SB846, including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.

Award Guidelines

  • The award ceiling is $10,000 per proposal. This is a one-time payment. Funds will be transferred to the team leader’s account to use at the team's discretion (not to be used for salary expenses). Example uses could include travel to funding agencies or regional partners to strategize, organize planning events, generate preliminary data, create literature summaries, etc.
  • GFSI may require changes to proposals as a requirement for funding.

Proposal Requirements

  • Proposals should be written in 11-point font, with 1.0 in margins, maximum 5 single-spaced pages. Timeline, figures, legends, and tables can be in 10-point font and are not part of the 5-page limit.
  • The 5-page limit should include the following headings: 1) List of the project director and all collaborators. Attach 1-page biographical sketch for each team member at end of proposal (not included in the 5-page limit). 2) Specify the region of interest. 3) Abstract of project ideas. 4) Detailed SMART project goals and objectives. 5) Previous work on project ideas. 6) Citations related to previous work. 6) List of previously funded projects in the region of interest. 7) List of prospective funding sources to target (minimum budget of $1 million), and existing RFA/NOFO announcement if available. 8) Timeline of group activities, including a schedule of team meetings to commence upon the award announcement.
  • Save and submit all requested documents as 1 PDF file. Title the file with last name_STRIKE2023.

Project Deliverables

  • A 10–15-page draft proposal narrative submitted to GFSI Associate Director Andy Ogram by March 1, 2024 unless a proposal has been submitted to a granting agency and forwarded to GFSI before this date.
  • Evidence that the team met regularly and created products related to the STRIKE Force objectives.

Proposal Review

  • Proposals will be reviewed by GFSI faculty.
  • Awardees will be required to attend an informational meeting to discuss the nature of these projects.

Evaluation Criteria

  • Importance, creativity, feasibility, and potential impact of the project.
  • Capacity, expertise, and experience of the interdisciplinary project team.
  • Plans and potential for future external funding of the project.

Submission

  • The deadline for submission of full proposals is 5:00 PM (EST), November 15, 2023. Late submissions will not be considered.
  • Submit the requested materials as 1 complete PDF file to gfsi@ifas.ufl.edu attention STRIKE Force Fund Submission in the subject line.