The Equipment Grant Program (EGP) serves to increase access to shared special purpose equipment for scientific research for use in the food and agricultural sciences programs in our Nation’s institutions of higher education, including State Cooperative Extension Systems. The program seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of fundamental and applied research in food and agricultural sciences, including data science and data systems, by providing institutions with opportunities to acquire instrumentation that supports the research, research training and extension goals of the institution.
The EGP emphasizes shared-use instrumentation that will enhance the capabilities of researchers both within and outside the proposing institutions. The EGP is intended to assist with acquisition that may be too costly and/or not appropriate for support through other NIFA grant programs (such as the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, Hatch, Evans-Allen, or 1890 Facilities Grant Program). An instrument acquired using EGP funding is expected to be fully operational by the end of the award period.
The acquired equipment may be a well-integrated ensemble which means that the equipment that defines the instrument enables a specific fundamental or applied research experiment in the food and agricultural sciences programs to be undertaken; separating or removing an element or component of such an instrument would preclude that research from occurring or succeeding.
Operations and Maintenance of the acquired equipment. Major research equipment can be expensive to operate and maintain over the useful lifetime. Proposals should demonstrate institutions’ commitment to undertake the responsibility of maintaining and operating the instrument for the benefit of a community of users engaged in research, training, and/or extension.
EGP does not:
- fund research projects or personnel salaries or wages, including research or personnel that use equipment acquired with support from the program.
- fund education projects, including education projects that use acquired equipment. However, descriptions of planned uses of acquired equipment in training of students and other practical applications for consumers may be included, if desired, to illustrate the potential impacts of such equipment acquisition.
- fund common, general purpose ancillary equipment that would normally be found in a laboratory and/or is relatively easily procured by other funding sources (for the purposes of this program, General Purpose Equipment is defined in 2 CFR 200.48).
- support the operation, insurance, or maintenance of facilities, equipment, or research laboratories, or renovation of facilities that house the acquired equipment.
- support the acquisition of a suite of instruments to outfit research laboratories/facilities or to conduct independent experiments simultaneously.