NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing sustainable agriculture technologies (WI, IA, MN)

这一区域创新引擎发展奖的重点是威斯康星州的可持续农业创新。在全球范围内，农业系统必须提高生产力和弹性，以养活预计到2050年将达到100亿的人口。这些系统还必须面对生物多样性下降、不可持续的资源使用、劳动力不平等和气候变化。威斯康星州的农业部门是力量的源泉，每年为威斯康星州的经济贡献1048亿美元，占劳动力的11.8%。一个致力于威斯康星州可持续农业的创新引擎将解决这些全球和地区挑战，同时培育健康的生态系统，支持可持续的土地、水和能源管理。他们必须在产量、劳动力、水、能源、土地和气候之间进行权衡。该发动机开发奖建立在威斯康星大学(UW)系统创新和技术管理办公室WiSys、威斯康星校友研究基金会(WARF)和UW-Milwaukee研究基金会(UWMRF)之间的合作伙伴关系上。该奖项将利用WiSys VentureHome®网络来提供威斯康星州的物理和数字基础设施，以实现这些目标，并促进学术界、工业界、政府、非营利组织和农场之间的新的和现有的合作者之间的合作。技术计划将由传统农民知识丰富的最新科学进步与支持创新企业的大胆社会经济举措相结合，并培养一支精通技术和多样化的农业劳动力队伍。中西部各地的农田需要经济上可行的战略，以减少气候变化对农业生产的影响，减少农业温室气体排放，解决水质问题，并提高未得到充分利用的特种作物的产量，以改善消费者的健康。随后的NSF发动机开发申请吸引了35名威斯康星州合作伙伴，他们提供了合作意向书，其中包括13名合作者，他们将通过分包合同试验创新项目。该网络将在整个UW系统中利用受使用启发的研究，将从动植物育种和遗传学到下一代传感器和数字农业的新技术和新兴技术结合起来，以支持基于生态集约原则的改进的食品生产系统。通过WiSys VentureHome网络，他们将解决缺乏对高科技、可扩展初创企业的可访问创业支持、获得早期风险资本以及经验丰富的创始人指导的地区差距。该发展奖的资金将用作种子资本，以加强现有的大学-产业-非营利性合作，吸引和培训非大都市社区资本不足的工人，并催化新的区域创新工程。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on sustainable agriculture innovation across Wisconsin. Globally, agricultural systems must become more productive and resilient to feed an expected population of 10 billion by 2050. Those systems must also confront declining biodiversity, unsustainable resource use, labor inequality, and climate change. The agricultural sector in Wisconsin is a source of strength contributing $104.8 billion annually to Wisconsin's economy and 11.8% of the workforce. An innovation engine dedicated to sustainable agriculture across Wisconsin will address these global and regional challenges while nurturing healthy ecosystems and supporting sustainable land, water, and energy management. They must balance trade-offs between production yield, labor, water, energy, land, and climate. This Engine Development Award builds on a partnership between the innovation and technology management offices of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System - WiSys, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), and UW-Milwaukee Research Foundation (UWMRF). The award will leverage the WiSys VentureHome® network to provide Wisconsin's physical and digital infrastructure to accomplish these goals and facilitate collaboration among new and existing collaborators across academia, industry, government, nonprofits, and farms.The technical plans combine the latest scientific advances enriched by traditional farmer knowledge with bold socio-economic initiatives that support innovative new ventures and develop a tech-savvy and diverse agriculture workforce. Farmlands across the Midwest need economically viable strategies to reduce the impact of climate change on agricultural production, mitigate agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, solve water quality problems, and enhance the production of underutilized specialty crops that improve consumer health. The subsequent NSF Engines development application attracted thirty-five Wisconsin partners who provided letters of collaboration, including thirteen collaborators who will pilot innovative programs through subcontracts. Together, the network will harness use-inspired research across UW System into novel and emerging technologies from animal and plant breeding and genetics to next-generation sensors and digital agriculture to support improved food-production systems based on principles of ecological intensification. Through the WiSys VentureHome network, they will address the regional gaps in the lack of accessible entrepreneurial support for high-tech, scalable startups, access to early-stage risk capital, and mentorship from experienced founders. Funds from this Development Award will serve as seed capital to supercharge existing university-industry-nonprofit collaborations, attract and train under-capitalized workers in non-metropolitan communities, and catalyze a new Regional Innovation Engine.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.