Advancing Innovations for Empowering NextGen AGriculturE Initiative

The MoC provides an overarching framework to encourage collaboration between U.S., Japan, India, and Australia research communities working at the intersection of emerging technologies and agriculture and sets out the principles by which jointly supported activities might be developed.

By collaborating on cutting edge research and innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, communications, and sensing through this Quad AI-ENGAGE effort, researchers collaborating across the diverse environments in Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. can help transform agricultural approaches to empower farmers everywhere to increase yield and resilience. By forming research networks that span Quad countries, ideas and best practices can be disseminated quickly to all Indo-Pacific nations resulting global impact on people, the economies, and the planet.

Goals

• The goals of the AI-ENGAGE partnership initiative are to strengthen research collaboration among the Quad countries – Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. and to increase the impact of critical technology research on people, the economies and in the Indo-Pacific region. The Quad countries are major research performing countries, but research collaborations among researchers in the four countries together have been limited to date. This partnership initiative provides for a multilateral arrangement to enable researchers to collaborate more effectively.

Scope

• Joint research should advance the field(s) of artificial intelligence, robotics, sensing, and/or communications with applications to agriculture, particularly those that empower farmers to enhance productivity, sustainability, and resilience. Examples of potential topics for consideration under AI-ENGAGE include but are not limited to: Artificial intelligence-enabled crop planning and monitoring including for diseases and pests; crop improvement through image-based high throughput phenotyping and genotyping; farm supply chain management; robotics to improve efficiency of the farm workforce; data-driven agriculture risk information and management system; assessing, monitoring, and management of land and aquatic resources; etc.

Funding Information

• For the U.S. effort in the proposals: proposers may request NSF funding of up to $400,000 and an award duration of up to three years.
• For the Japanese effort in the proposal: proposers may request JST funding of up to 60,000,000 Japanese Yen (including indirect costs) and an award duration of up to three years.
• For the Indian effort in the proposal: proposers may request funding of up to Rupees. 30,000,000.00 for each joint proposal and an award duration of up to three years.
• For the Australian effort in the proposal: no direct funding may be requested.
• Anticipated number of Awards: The Quad partners expect to make 5-7 collaborative international awards, subject to availability of funds and quality of proposals.

Eligibility Criteria

• All proposals are expected to propose research in areas indicated in the scope of research. Each research team submitting a proposal must engage researchers from at least three Quad countries (Australia, India, Japan, US). Proposals with meaningful collaboration among all four Quad countries are encouraged and will be prioritized for funding.
• For Proposals to NSF:
  • Proposals should leverage international collaboration to support potentially transformative research ideas or approaches that advance the goals of AI-ENGAGE. Proposals involving U.S. researchers must be submitted by eligible U.S. organizations  and must include international collaboration as an integral part of the work. NSF encourages proposals from diverse teams. Proposals from early career investigators are especially encouraged. A separate copy of the same proposal must be submitted by the India applicants to ICAR, Japan applicants to JST, and Australia applicants to CSIRO according to the submission deadline outlined. Proposers must check that their collaborating investigators from other countries meet respective eligibility criteria.
• For Proposals to JST:
  • Proposals that do not involve US researchers must be submitted to JST through e-Rad system by Japanese PIs. Japanese PIs who are part of a collaborative team submitting proposals within the AI-ENGAGE initiative are eligible to request support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). Japanese PIs must submit copy of proposals and supplemental information to JST through e-Rad system.
  • After awarding of proposal, the funded researchers will also have to ensure that an international Collaborative Research Agreement (CRA) is signed by representatives of each participating research institution. Please make sure that the CRA does not contradict or undermine the Research Contract (between JST and the institution) and further that it does not disadvantage the Japanese party.
• For Proposals to ICAR:
  • Indian researchers, who are part of a collaborative team submitting proposals within the AI-ENGAGE initiative are eligible to request support from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The Indian PIs should submit a copy of the joint proposal including the Indian budget as one PDF file to ICAR.
• For Proposals to CSIRO:
  • Australian researchers are invited to participate in the QUAD AI Engage initiative by seeking support from select existing programs to full AI-ENGAGE proposals. Applicants should include a description of how the involvement of Australian researchers will enhance the project’s objectives in the project description section of their AI-ENGAGE proposal, while also submitting an Australian grant application. This collaboration aims to foster innovative research and strengthen international partnerships.

Review Criteria

• The proposals will be reviewed by experts contacted by NSF, the Coordinating Agency, in competition with other AI-ENGAGE proposals using NSF’s merit review process. Officials will have access to unattributed reviews and panel summaries where applicable. NSF intends to make awards to the U.S. proposers participating in the recommended collaborative proposals, and JST and ICAR, intend to make awards to their respective researchers participating in the recommended collaborative proposals. CSIRO will review the Australian grants that will be linked to full proposals, making an assessment of eligibility while the overall project merits will be reviewed through the NSF process.

Application Requirements

• All proposals submitted must include the following:
  • Proposal Title beginning with “AI-ENGAGE”.
  • The Project Description of the proposal is limited to fifteen pages and must present the full scope of work, including contributions of U.S.-based and international researchers.
  • The PIs must make clear that the proposed activities constitute a well-integrated, collaborative project.
  • The Project Description should also explain how the proposed international collaboration will enable research advances and broader impacts that go beyond what each country’s teams could accomplish on their own.
  • The project descriptions for both the international and NSF submissions must have the same title and include the same content even if proposals are submitted in different languages.

For more information, visit Indian Council of Agricultural Research.