Applications open for New Harvest’s cell ag crowdfunding challenge

We are partnering up with Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition and the Experiment Foundation A couple months ago, we announced that New Harvest would be suspending this cycle of our flagship research fellowship program. As promised, we are happy to announce our first experiment in new funding mechanisms!New Harvest is partnering with Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition and the Experiment Foundation for a Cell Ag challenge on Experiment.com. This challenge is designed to support cellular agriculture research, in and out of the lab!Applications are open now - apply here. Here’s how it works.  We have $50,000 to allot for projects. If selected, New Harvest and RDJ’s FootPrint Coalition will give you a first boost of cash to help you get started. You will be responsible for crowdfunding the remaining funds for your project. The way crowdfunding works is that you only receive your funds if you reach your project goal. Check out the Researcher Guide for tips on crowdfunding such as how to find an audience, use your networks, and more. New Harvest and Footprint Coalition will be helping to bring global attention to your projects, but tapping into your networks is also critical to success - and helps spread awareness on these important research topics! If you reach your funding goal, you’ll also have the opportunity to join New Harvest’s research community to provide additional support to accomplish your work. What kind of projects are we looking for? In the past, we’ve mostly funded wet lab research that takes place in a lab. We’re using this opportunity to expand that beyond the lab! For this challenge, we are looking for projects that take place in or out of the lab. In fact, we are especially interested in projects exploring the social, economic, and political dimensions of cellular agriculture. For example...what policy interventions can ensure the land hypothetically freed up by cellular agriculture is used for carbon capture?  :thinking_face: If you are interested in studying the social science of cellular agriculture but not sure where to start, check out these ideas for inspiration! To answer these important questions, we are looking for people from all disciplinary backgrounds: tissue engineering, food policy, environmental science, sociology, economics, etc. We will prioritize researchers and projects from underrepresented backgrounds and topics. Above all, we want to help transformative projects get off the ground. So hit us with your wildest, most radical ideas!  The only requirement is that all funded projects must contribute to the public body of knowledge and therefore must remain openly accessible. Head over to our challenge page to learn more about the challenge and create your application! Reach out to breanna@new-harvest.org if you have any questions.