Bayer’s Grants4Ag program awards funding for 21 new crop science research proposals

Bayer announced its 2022 cohort of Grants4Ag grant recipients who were chosen to receive awards ranging from 5,000 to 15,000 Euros to help them complete research on challenges facing agriculture. 21 proposals make up this year’s Grants4Ag awardees with research goals including reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint, understanding social factors that influence innovation adoption, and improving the drought tolerance of plants in the face of more frequent extreme weather events.

“Bayer is the leader in agriculture research and development, but it’s very clear that given the complexity of the challenges farmers face around the world, we can’t solve every problem on our own,” said Phil Taylor, Open Innovation Lead for Bayer’s Crop Science Division. “We were thrilled at the quality of this year’s submissions and we’re looking forward to working with each of the grant recipients.”

As part of Bayer’s Open4Ag initiative Bayer’s Grants4Ag awardees retain all intellectual property rights to their research, and in addition to financial support successful researchers will also be paired with one of Bayer’s own scientists to provide project guidance as their research progresses. Through this commitment to partnership, and with support from innovation partnering platform Halo, Bayer received more than 350 proposals from researchers around the world during a five-week submission window this past fall.

“Bayer’s Grants4Ag program is an amazing opportunity for my research, and I was very pleased to have been chosen as a grant recipient,” says Amy Lemay of Brock University. “Grants4Ag offers not only financial support, but also provides access to leading scientists at Bayer and mentorship opportunities that will help me to understand challenges and tactics that can further develop my research.”

A full list of grant awardees, their bios, and summaries of their submitted research is available by visiting the Grants4Ag program website.

2022 Grants4Ag awardees

Eric Bishop-Von-Wettberg – The University of Vermont
Marcelo Berretta – National Agricultural Technology Institute
Siobhan Brady – UC Davis
Phil Brewer – The University of Adelaide
Alexandre ten Caten – Federal University of Santa Catarina
Jonathan Claussen – Iowa State University
Andrea Clavijo – AGROSAVIA
Michelle Dunstone – Monash University
Eva Farre – Michigan State University
Hailing Jin – UC Riverside
Ari Kambouris – Sinafis
Franz J. Kurfess – California Polytechnic State University
Rim Lassoued – University of Saskatchewan
Amy Lemay – Brock University
Jiarui Li – Innatrix Inc.
Pengfei Liu – China Agricultural University
Cristian Malavert – University of Buenos Aires
Anna E. Whitfield – NC State University
Ce Yang – University of Minnesota
Feng Zhang – Nanjing Agricultural University
Ji Zhou – National Institute of Agricultural Botany