Dear Friends, 
The on-line project nomination process to assist IR-4 and its specialty crop stakeholders prioritize the 2020 IR-4 research plan under the Food Use Program (residue studies and product performance research) and Integrated Solutions (residue mitigation, organic, PPWS or resistance research) is available Aug 29 thru Sept 11, 2019. The process is similar to prior years, with the exception that a nomination process for potential Integrated Solutions projects has been added. Only projects given at least one “A” nomination (the highest nomination level) will be discussed at the Week of Workshops in Hunt Valley, MD.
IR-4 anticipates that there will be adequate resources to allow the establishment of 46 “A” priorities at the Food Use Workshop Sept. 24 for residue studies. We are also anticipating that the State of California will be providing resources that may allow IR-4 to add an additional 4 studies. IR-4 also anticipates that it will have resources to support research on 5-10 new, highest priority product performance project requests.
During the Integrated Solutions (IS) priority-setting session Wed. morning Sept. 25, participants will identify 6 top priorities from “A” nominated requests in the IS database. Additionally, participants will be asked to identify 5 backup priorities that will be addressed if funding is available or if it is not possible to do one of the top priorities. It will be very important for you, our stakeholders, to not only nominate the highest priority requests, but also to provide a justification and provide potential solutions and researchers during the nomination process. This will help in project selection and with the process of preparing protocols for 2020 research.
Project nominations for both Food Use and IS can be accomplished in one of two ways. The preferred way is to send a list of project requests you’d like to nominate as “A”, “B” or “C”, along with a brief justification for any “A” nomination, to your appropriate IR-4 Regional Field Coordinator. Engaging the IR-4 Regional Field Coordinator has the added benefit of providing information that allows them to better advocate for your important projects, throughout the project selection process. The other way to accomplish project nominations is to nominate projects yourself.
If you choose to nominate Food Use or Integrated Solution projects yourself, you will need to access the project nomination process. On this log-in page, prior users simply log-in, while first-time users must create a user log-in. After log-in, you will arrive at the project nominations site, where you will click the “Food Use” or “Integrated Solutions” button, and proceed to follow the detailed instructions to nominate your most important project requests.
If you encounter any difficulties accessing or making on-line nominations, please contact IR-4 Headquarters (Susan Bierbrunner, bierbrunner@njaes.rutgers.edu 732-932-9575 x4611 or Van Starner, vanstar@njaes.rutgers.edu x4621), or your Regional Field Coordinator for assistance.
Jerry Baron
Executive Director
IR-4 Project
500 College Road East, Suite 201
Princeton, NJ 08540
jbaron@njaes.rutgers.edu
Office: (732) 932-9575 extension 4605
Cell: (908) 627-4213