Michigan State University Named an NSF Global Center to Solve Food Challenges
Michigan State University in East Lansing has been awarded one of six Global Centers to solve worldwide food challenges through the U.S. National Science Foundation and its partner agencies in the U.S., Canada, Finland, Japan, Korea, and the UK.
The funding awards total nearly $82 million in the Global Centers competition.
The 2024 Global Centers award focus on advancing bioeconomy research to solve global challenges, whether by increasing crop resilience, converting plant matter or other biomass into fuel, or paving the way for bio-foundries to scale-up applications of biotechnology for societal benefit.
The program supports holistic, multidisciplinary projects that bring together international teams and scientific disciplines, including education and social sciences. All Global Centers will integrate public engagement and workforce development, paying close attention to impacts on communities.
"Global Centers are leveraging expertise and resources across like-minded nations and uniting multidisciplinary teams from around the world to accelerate innovations in the bioeconomy for great impact," says Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the NSF.
"Together, we are forging new solutions to pressing socioeconomic challenges impacting all of us. These international centers of research excellence will generate crucial knowledge, empower communities, and strengthen the foundations of global cooperation."
Partner agencies include the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S.; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, or NSERC, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, or SSHRC, of Canada; the Research Council of Finland, or RCF, and Innovation Funding Agency Business Finland; the Japan Science and Technology Agency, or JST; the ROK Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea; and UK Research and Innovation, or UKRI.
"MSUâ€TMs International Research Center provides a unique opportunity to connect researchers across several continents to solve global food challenges," says Seung Yon "Sue" Rhee, a Michigan State University Research Foundation Professor in the College of Natural Science and director of MSUâ€TMs Plant Resilience Institute.
The Global Centers program leverages NSFâ€TMs areas of strength and advances the U.S. governmentâ€TMs bioeconomy executive order and the Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing . The Global Centers will also capitalize on other NSF investments in bio-foundries that enable researchers to rapidly design, create, test, and streamline the development of tools and products to accelerate research to advance the bioeconomy.
To learn more about this international partnership, visit the NSF Global Centers webpage .
In addition to MSUâ€TMs International Research Center for Enhancing Plant Resilience, the five other new centers are the CIRCLE Center for Innovative Recycling and Circular Economy , the Global Center for Sustainable Bioproducts , Alliance for Socially-acceptable and Actionable Plants, the center for Reliable and Scalable Biofoundries for Biomanufacturing and Global Bioeconomy , and the International Bioeconomy Macroalgae Center .
Founded in 1855, Michigan State University offers more than 400 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.
