Strawman/Papers

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION
9/6/01

IMPLEMENTING THE NORTHEAST REGION’S JOINT PRIORITIES

A White Paper

September 2001

Preface:

At the January 2001 meeting of the Northeast region’s associations of Cooperative Extension (NEED) and State Agricultural Experiments Stations (NERA) directors it was agreed to collaborate on five regional priorities (http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/NEPriorities.htm). Each priority was to have a champion identified and administrative advisors appointed, with research and extension activities initiated soon thereafter. In late June a progress report prompted an agreement by the institutions employing the five champions to provide each with modest operating funds and administrative support.

Subsequent developments have induced the authors of this White Paper to give new consideration to the implementation of activities addressing the five previously selected regional priorities. This White Paper sets out some assumptions, assertions, and suggestions for moving forward with jointly planned, collaboratively sponsored and functionally integrated multistate activities within the Northeast region. There is no intention on the part of the authors to set an agenda for others. Rather, the intention is to set out some more detailed points-to-consider as the region’s leaders move ahead with planning and implementation processes.

Introduction:

Several examples of successful multistate collaborations are available for drawing on as models for the region’s newly proposed functionally integrated, multistate activities. These include, inter alia, the NE IPM program and now the NE Regional IPM Center, the NE Aquaculture Center, the NE Center for Rural Development, and the SARE Program. In addition we have drawn on the successful experiences of the Sea Grant University community in developing their national “theme areas”, as “strategic investments, national initiatives and regional initiatives”. All of these collaborations have instructive lessons. Primarily, in each instance, the success of a regional collaboration seems dependent on having access to sustained funding to support their operations.

Given this primary consideration we list the following assumptions.

Assumptions:

  1. Sustained financial resources will be needed in differing amounts for each of the five proposed activities.
  2. Competitive grant funding as sources of operational support [e.g., Initiate for Future Agricultural and Food Systems, (IFAFS)] will be neither sustained (because the duration of such competitive grants is limited) nor easily available for the five NE priorities (e.g., given success rates of 9% for IFAFS).
  3. Advocates for the Land Grant University System will be willing to support requests for additional funding for the region’s five priorities.

Recommended Strategies:

  1. Position each of the five theme areas so that they can be promoted for earmarked funding from the federal government (as a “Direct Federal Appropriation” or “Special Grant”), as well as other matching sources, public and private.
  2. Obtain early agreements from all regional institutions on responsibilities and ownership of the proposed regional activities. Considerations should include access to policy makers, institutional capacity to contribute, and willingness to serve as the region’s “locus of facilitation” for the agreed activities (as virtual centers?).

Points-to-consider:

  1. Some face-to-face meetings of contributing specialists and researchers will be necessary to develop specific plans for the thematic activities, to estimate the resources needed, and to state the expected outcomes.
  2. Some professionally prepared communications documents will be needed to assist our advocates in obtaining support for the necessary resources.
  3. Buy-in from specialists and researchers for these “top-down” identified priorities will be more difficult than for investigator-initiated activities, and this will require attention from the region’s leadership.
  4. Team formation will be challenging, and will necessitate extraordinary attention and support from the region’s leaders.
  5. Some agreement will be needed on the governance of teams, operational procedures, ground rules, and the management of activities. Some example of what is meant by “ground rules are:
    1. Proposals should be based on activities that are both conceptually sound science and posses “real-world” potential.
    2. Approved activities should represent a unique opportunity to synergize institutional collaborations (a.k.a. interdependency).
    3. Activities should be planned with some grounding in existing activities and should be of sufficiently high priority in the future to be absorbed into other core activities, or developed still further as a national activity.
    4. Outcomes should have a good fit with existing (or potential) funding sources.
  6. Directors should be appointed to serve as the Chair(s) of the activity, at least until it is firmly established, to provide authority and direction.
  7. The scope of activities may not match the original intent of the Directors, as the expected tendency will be to narrow activities to meet other needs or interests. This may need to be reconciled on a case-by-case basis.

Possible Next Steps:

  1. Appoint representative NERA and NEED Directors to each theme area, to serve as Co-Chairs.
  2. Develop agreed rules and procedures for the sanctioned joint activities.
  3. Form teams of participants with broad institutional representation and support sufficient for at least one face-to-face meeting.
  4. Request activity proposals, promotional materials, and work plans for each of the priority themes from each team.
  5. Some congressional appropriations committees-alignment strategy should be developed soon.

Additional Suggestions:

  1. Memberships on “themes teams” should be indeterminate (indefinite).
  2. NE CARET should be involved in the discussions as soon as possible.