The 2025 Western IPM Center annual grants Request for Applications spells out all the requirements for our grant program and what applicants must prepare and submit. This post is simply to emphasize elements of the request because applicants occasionally overlook them – and those that overlook them rarely get funded.
So here are a few things to keep in mind:
Regional Focus: We are the Western Integrated Pest Management Center and cover a vast area of 17 states and territories. We take that regional focus seriously and expect our grantees to as well. Proposals focused on a single state – especially when the pest or crop-pest combination of concern occurs in several states – are not viewed as favorably by our review panels as multi-state proposals. This is especially true when there are natural, nearby combinations like tree fruit in Oregon and Washington, hops in Washington and Idaho or leafy greens in California and Arizona. Whenever possible, find collaborators and look for ways to maximize the impacts of your project across the region.
Center Priorities: The Western IPM Center’s list of stakeholder-identified priorities is pretty broad and most applicants are easily able to identify a few priorities their project addresses. Occasionally, though, it’s a stretch. Generally, if you have trouble articulating how your proposed project addresses a Center priority, reviewers will have trouble as well. It might be a project better suited for another funder.
Stakeholder Buy-In: Strong proposals have clear stakeholder involvement and buy-in and detailed letters of support. Tepid or generic letters of support elicit tepid scores from reviewers. Letters that show stakeholders are clearly engaged, supportive and will benefit from the project if it’s successful are meaningful.
Clear Collaborations: In a similar vein, letters from collaborators should clearly identify who is doing what and what the relationship is between the parties. Generic “we’ll cooperate somehow” letters don’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Work Groups: Work groups are a natural fit for Western IPM Center funding because they do what we do – bring people together to address broad-area pest problems. Work groups can be research focused or outreach and extension focused, and if the problem you’re trying to address is widespread and could use several bright people working on it, a work group might be the best approach.
One tip for funded work groups: If you are applying for an additional year of funding, you are directed to attach a two-page summary of what the work group accomplished the previous year. Don’t skip or skimp on this. It’s your chance to write sentences like, “With Western IPM Center funding last year, we accomplished these specific things and had this specific impact, and we’ll build on that next year by doing all the things we’ve spelled out in the project narrative….” While past performance may be no guarantee of future results, recent accomplishments and a natural plan for building on them is something that makes reviewers sit up and take notice.
