Summary

This report examines the potential for land-grant colleges and universities to increase the impact of their collective contributions to the American public through inter-institutional coordination and collaboration. Established in 1862 by the first Morrill Act, the land-grant system began the democratization of postsecondary education in agriculture and other subjects across the United States, launching an initial set of academic institutions known as the “1862s.” Subsequent legislation created the “1890s,” which are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that have agricultural and allied programs, and the “1994s,” which are Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). Today, there are 111 land-grant colleges and universities across all states and many U.S. territories. Through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the federal government invests money to carry out the system’s tripartite mission of agricultural research, education, and extension, distributing funds to the states as both capacity grants and competitive grants to support land-grant colleges and universities. A wide distribution of academic institutions, together with associated experiment stations and extension services, work in partnership with states and counties to address a variety of local, state, and regional issues.

A congressional directive in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 called on USDA to establish a Blue Ribbon Panel to examine how cooperation in the land-grant system could deepen and expand the impact of its work. NIFA turned to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) for help in addressing the directive. To that end, the National Academies established the Committee on Enhancing Collaboration Between Land-Grant Universities and Colleges (the Panel) to examine how knowledge generation, problem solving, and opportunity creation across the food and agricultural knowledge system can be increased by enhanced collaborative activity.

The Panel’s study was conducted in a compressed time frame over approximately 9 months, holding its first virtual public meeting in November 2021 and final virtual mini-workshop in August 2022. The Panel members met in closed virtual meetings to consider their charge, share individual experiences with collaboration, identify a variety of activities that might be broadly representative of the types of collaboration taking place across the land-grant system, and deliberate on the meaning of “success” for collaborative activities and the factors that contribute to success. It further explored the drivers of and potential benefits to expanding collaboration across the system, as well as perceived barriers to collaboration. These discussions led the Panel to develop a set of preliminary observations (see Appendix C) that were posted online for several weeks to obtain stakeholder comment. The feedback received (see Appendix D) prompted the Panel to organize virtual mini-workshops on several additional topics before drafting its report.

Given the explicit language of the congressional directive, the Panel’s report focuses primarily on the dynamics of cooperation inside the land-grant system. It is recognized, however, that the land-grant system exists in a universe that includes many other non-land-grant colleges and universities that also conduct research and provide education, as well as private-sector entities that often collaborate with land-grant institutions. These relationships are relevant to broadening the impact of the land-grant system and should be included in future explorations of this topic.

COLLABORATION IN THE LAND-GRANT SYSTEM

The Panel found that collaborative projects between faculty members at different land-grant colleges and universities occur frequently. For example, there are currently 247 active multistate projects supported through legislatively appropriated funding (Hatch Act of 1887) directed to 1862 universities for the purpose of interstate coordination and collaboration on research issues of mutual interest and concern. Multistate research projects are initiated by the agricultural experiment stations in two or more states. Once estab-

lished, they are open to other institutions, including other land-grant and non-land-grant colleges and universities, federal agencies, and the private sector, which bring their own sources of funding to participate. Some multistate projects are long-standing, decades-old activities. Others form to address a problem and eventually become inactive. However, few if any involve participants from the 1890 or 1994 institutions.

From examples of past and current collaborative projects, Panel members identified examples of projects with demonstrated “success.” These included the large award-winning multistate project, Soil, Water, and Environmental Physics to Sustain Agriculture and Natural Resources, as well as the competitively funded Specialty Crop Research Initiative project on zebra chip disease of potatoes. Across and beyond the system, there are diverse kinds of projects, such as the large-scale, multi-institutional Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project funded through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) competitive grants program of NIFA, as well as the National Integrated Pest Management Coordinating Committee supported by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

In general, there was a dearth of participation by 1890 and 1994 institutions. In contrast, the Panel found that greater inter-institutional collaboration happens at the state level.

In Virginia, extension is a shared responsibility of Virginia Tech (an 1862) and Virginia State University (an 1890), and in Alabama, through the Alabama Agricultural Land Grant Alliance, statewide extension activities are jointly conducted by Auburn (an 1862) and Alabama A&M and Tuskegee University (both 1890s). It is worth noting, however, that creating collaborations inside state lines may be easier than those between different states, which may be more complex due to differences in local priorities and in legislative frameworks.

In some places, a high-level partnership agreement creates the foundation for building trust and familiarity as a prerequisite for collaboration. An example is the Michigan Inter-Tribal Land Grant Extension System (MILES), which reflects the commitment of the state land-grant colleges and universities (1862s and 1994s) to the success of each other, the tribes, and the collective benefit of the public in the state. The 1890 Centers of Excellence,¹ established at HBCUs to leverage disciplinary diversity among institutions, provide a unifying space for collaborative activity. These and other examples of successful past or ongoing multidisciplinary and/or multi-institutional projects and programs reflect the diverse kinds of collaborative research across the land-grant system.

FRAMING THE VALUE OF COLLABORATIVE AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

As there are already many active collaborations in the land-grant system, the Panel reflected on why collaboration deserves additional attention. One compelling answer is that the focus and complexity of key questions in food and agricultural science are evolving in ways that would be enhanced by collaborative effort. The 2019 National Academies’ report Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030 notes that the serious problems facing agriculture today are unlike those in the past. The natural resources on which agriculture depends, such as water and fertile soils, are showing serious signs of stress due to changes in climate, land use, population growth, and other factors that affect the agricultural and food system. The Science Breakthroughs report defined the major goals for food and agricultural research in the next decade to include “(1) improving the efficiency of food and agricultural systems, (2) increasing the sustainability of agriculture, and (3) increasing the resiliency of agricultural systems to adapt to rapid changes and extreme conditions” (NASEM, 2019, p. 2).

Those goals are underpinned by broad research challenges that can be addressed most powerfully by insights from multiple scientific disciplines that promote “convergent” solutions, as described in two previous National Research Council reports, A New Biology for the 21st Century (NRC, 2009) and Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond (NRC, 2014). The latter defines convergence as “an approach to problem solving that cuts across disciplinary boundaries and integrates knowledge, tools, and ways of thinking from life and health sciences,

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¹ See https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/about-programs/program-operational-areas/1890-land-grant-institutions-programs, accessed September 20, 2022.

physical, mathematical, and computational sciences, engineering disciplines, and beyond to form a comprehensive synthetic framework for tackling scientific and societal challenges that exist at the interfaces of multiple fields” (NRC, 2014, p. 1).

The Science Breakthroughs report encouraged the use of novel, crosscutting tools such as the following to “break through” the difficult problems facing agriculture:

• Employing systems science to develop holistic understanding of problems;
• Developing field-deployable sensors for rapid and dynamic monitoring of conditions of interest across multiple scales and geographies;
• Using data science, software tools, and advanced analytic models to increase predictive abilities;
• Gene editing of agriculturally important organisms for productivity, quality, and climate resilience; and
• Harnessing the soil, plant, and animal microbiome to improve crop production, transform feed efficiency, and increase resilience to stress and disease.

This toolbox cuts across the biological sciences, engineering and technology, the human sciences, and economics, and reflects the need for convergent thinking. In a collaborative setting, the use of these applications will be more impactful with regional or national coordination and planning. The land-grant system, with its nationwide remit, seems an ideal place to implement recommendations from the Science Breakthroughs report.

Applications of Data Science in Agriculture

One of the more compelling collaborations the Panel learned about was the NIFA and National Science Foundation–funded Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institutes, which provide data science and AI tools to a group of diverse partners, including 1862 and 1890 institutions as well the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the Argonne National Laboratory, and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. In addition to the flexibility of the platform to accommodate different types of research, the platform strongly supports teaching and extension elements. This kind of collaborative platform may not be burdened by some of the problems that other collaborations face, such as bureaucracy and inequity in partnership. The potential to create different types of these platforms needs further exploration.

The Science of Team Science

Another ingredient to successful collaboration are the human factors involved, because even with cutting-edge science, a diversity of collaborators must work together. The science of team science offers provocative insights from the study of multidisciplinary and multisector science teams and can even provide teams with feedback on their connectedness during the course of a collaboration. Jennifer Cross of Colorado State University, who presented her research to the Panel, said the data show there is no shortcut around the development of trust and a shared vision if a collaboration is to be successful, but these things can be built proactively. Team science has a theory, and it can be predictive. Such information could be useful for any scientific team.

Capacity Funding for the Land-Grant System

Without a doubt, collaboration requires sufficient funding. Unlike the legislative authorities (Hatch funds) that support multistate collaboration in the 1862 institutions, no such designated pot of money exists for the 1890s and 1994s. Other funds could be used, but these institutions are already underfunded in general. Many are not able to raise the 1:1 match required to receive full federal funding. In 2020, 10 of the 19 1890 institutions did not meet the match and collectively lost out on $21 million. The inequity of the funding has prompted lawsuits in some states, most recently Tennessee and Maryland, to challenge the legacy of

providing state-matching funds at states’ majority-White universities but not states’ HBCUs (1890s). Most of the funds to the 1994 institutions (TCUs) comes from interest off a public endowment.

An alternate to capacity funding could be the competitively funded grants of AFRI. In 2021, an HBCU (Central State University) was awarded a grant to lead a Coordinated Agricultural Project grant with 1862 and 1994 institutions. Success rates of AFRI grants range between 10 and 40 percent. A larger backdrop to the funding picture is that state and federal funding for agricultural research has been declining for two decades, dropping from a peak of $7.64 billion in 2002 (in 2019 dollars) to $5.15 billion in 2019, the same level as in 1970. Considering the return on every dollar spent is conservatively valued at $20, U.S. competitiveness is being short-changed.

PRINCIPLES FOR ENHANCING THE SUCCESS AND IMPACT OF LAND-GRANT COLLABORATION

The Statement of Task asks the Panel for a framework of principles to foster successful coordination and collaboration in the land-grant system. The Panel’s view is that effective systems-based approaches will require the following:

• Support for large-scale collaborative projects at the highest administrative levels in the various institutions;
• Targeted financial resources to enable planning and communication among institutions;
• Focused operating resources, including administrative support and trained project and data management support, in addition to directed funds to support research, teaching, and outreach;
• Incentive structures that enable faculty to participate in large-scale projects without compromising on their other responsibilities;
• Uniform, shared data management systems that enable seamless access to emerging information; and
• Outstanding communications support to inform the public, including legislators, of the outcomes of their financial investments.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO OVERCOME BARRIERS TO COLLABORATION

The Panel was also asked to make recommendations to overcome barriers and offers these five that could be impactful in improving the success and impact of collaboration in the land-grant system:

1. It is urgent that Congress take action to facilitate the participation of all land-grant colleges and universities in multistate research and extension projects.

Currently, inter-institutional collaborations of the multistate research projects do not routinely engage faculty from the full range of institutions across the land-grant system. Collaborations that involve the 1890s and 1994s occur much less often than collaborations among the older and better funded 1862s. As noted earlier, different authorities guide the allocation of federal funds to 1862, 1890, and 1994 institutions respectively, with different requirements for state-matching support of federal dollars and different stipulations for the use of funds for collaboration. Historical and current funding disparities have prevented many 1890s and 1994s from being full partners in collaborations with the 1862s. If unifying the land-grant system around common national pursuits is important, Congress should address the need to provide dedicated funding to support participation in collaborative activities.

2. Land-grant administrators should examine how to reduce the variability in committed support for faculty participation in collaborative activities.

Institutions have differing approaches for supporting faculty involvement in collaborative research. That creates varying expectations about the nature of the activity and the role of participants. For example, some institutions use multistate research funds to support salaries while others may use them to support travel to participate in meetings. The Panel recognizes that experiment station and extension directors have reasons for managing their funds as they do, but expectations for the level of participation in a collaborative activity need to be made clearer by parties involved along with decision making around values.

3. Faculty members in academic departments should reflect on how collaborative activities fit into an academic career and advocate for their reward.

Like many, if not most, academic entities, land-grant colleges and universities have traditions emphasizing and rewarding competitive, rather than collaborative, research projects. A stakeholder commented that “departmental cultures around collaborations vary widely but are constantly changing. In the natural sciences, any institution that has failed to keep up with the collaborative nature of research in their evaluation procedures will fail to be competitive at all.” If this is true, then the time has come for departments to modify evaluation criteria for promotion and tenure to ensure that achievements in team science are appropriately recognized and rewarded.

4. Funding agencies should help faculty find partners for collaboration.

Several respondents from 1862 institutions to the Panel’s preliminary observations acknowledged the problematic nature of not involving participants from the 1890 and 1994 institutions and even expressed dismay at being unaware of the expertise at institutions across the land-grant system, not to mention at non-land-grant colleges and universities or other organizations that may serve as suitable partners for collaboration.

To increase knowledge of where relevant expertise exists across the land-grant system, NIFA could encourage collaboration by convening information exchange or sandbox workshops. These could highlight funded research projects or new areas of research and allow investigators to share information about work they may be doing in topical areas that are of interest to other scientists in the system. This could, in turn, help to establish relationships among investigators with common interests in particular problems and, as suggested above, help create interpersonal foundations for future collaborative work.

Several individuals from 1994 institutions emphasized the need to build trust and relationships prior to inviting them to be included on a proposal or even to participate in meetings, which makes yet another claim on limited time. The collaborative activities between Tribal Councils and the State Agricultural Experiment Station and Extension in Montana as well as MILES (see Chapter 2) may be useful models for partnering with 1994 institutions.

5. Land-grant colleges and universities should help build capacity for collaboration by introducing faculty to the science of team science.

Establishing collaborations requires team building, emotional intelligence, and project management skills, for which many faculty are unprepared and untrained. Academic institutions generally only aim to train students in their scientific disciplines, not in understanding the human behaviors that foster successful teams. There is a scientific basis for understanding these dynamics in collaboration, and academic institutions should use that knowledge to inspire more explicit thinking around team dynamics and self-awareness by leaders of and participants in collaborative activities. One respondent to the Panel’s preliminary observations pleaded that the Panel does not recommend “another useless training exercise.” Institutions should

pilot ways to expose faculty to the science of team science so that potential for skill-building is supported by credible feedback.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AMPLIFYING IMPACTS THROUGH EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS

The Panel offers two recommendations for improving public awareness of the work of the land-grant system:

1. NIFA should support a collaborative research and extension activity of social scientists and science communicators in the land-grant system to develop outreach strategies.

Documenting the economic, environmental, and societal impacts and benefits of collaborative research is a way of raising the profile of this information for producers, policy makers, and the public. Simply stated, impact is the effect that an activity or project, especially something new, has on a situation, person, or policy. Constituents may be more likely to recognize the impacts and benefits of collaborative activities among land-grant colleges and universities if communication strategies are tailored to their interests and levels of understanding.

2. Land-grant colleges and universities should create novel messaging vehicles to reach specific audiences about the outcomes of collaborations.

Effectiveness can be enhanced by creating specific messages for particular audiences and by using tools that increase audience understanding. For example, the use of graphical tools can be an effective method of communication for some audiences. Telling the story behind the research, perhaps by using analogies, and clearly explaining why the results are important for ordinary citizens or policy makers could be helpful for nonprofessional audiences. Student-led hackathons could bring a fresh approach to information dissemination.

NEXT STEPS

The Panel notes that the principles and recommendations in its report provide only an initial framework to enhance collaboration across the land-grant system that would allow it to operate more effectively as a unified whole. Adopting a culture of collaboration implies change in behavior reinforced by enabling policies. For example, faculty would be encouraged to pursue collaboration more readily if the time required for project planning and team development and maintenance were treated as valuable during tenure and promotion deliberations. The adoption of curricula for project management, communication, and other skills that enhance collaboration would improve chances for team success and perhaps provide new and satisfying career pathways for students and faculty members.

Diverse backgrounds, cultures, community relationships, and scientific expertise reside in the land-grant colleges and universities, but collaborative vehicles are needed to take advantage of that diversity and allow the institutions to operate in a more connected way. Congress can play a role in supporting their development through examining its support of the land-grant colleges and universities and the statutes that encourage collaboration. Some of the obstacles mentioned in the report are not trivial to overcome. Addressing some of them implies the need for additional funding and responsibility in return for greater effectiveness, capacity, and “true” partnership. The ability to reach stakeholders and the public more effectively may be pivotal to the ability to get the support needed to achieve greater collaborative outcomes.

The Panel hopes that the ideas offered in this report will gain the attention of leaders of the land-grant colleges and universities and their stakeholders, who will then be willing to spend time developing and implementing them with the support of Congress.