Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The NRSP1 Management Committee, which serves as the advisory committee for this project, met four times during the reporting period. The Committee discussed plans for the NIMSS Upgrade and progress on the impacts writing component of the project.

As of Sept. 2013, there were 273 multistate projects and activities. Of these, 119 were multistate projects, 7 NRSPs, and the rest are coordinating committees (Advisory, Development, CC's and ERA's). The regional breakdown is as follows: North Central=104, Northeast=36, South=60 and West=66. 4. 56 projects terminated on Sept. 2013 and 42 started on October 2013. 225 technical committees met and used NIMSS to authorize these meetings in 2013. 211 reports for 186 projects were submitted, 19 are termination reports. In collaboration with the Impacts Communications Specialist, an Impacts Statements was added to the NIMSS main menu.

As of Sept. 30, 2013, 56 impact statements have been prepared by the Impact Communications Specialist, with seven under review. All finalized statements, available in PDF version, have been uploaded in the NIMSS Impacts menu. Of these, 18 are North Central projects, 6 Northeastern, 11 Southern (including NRSP-8), and 21 Western. Three press releases were written and distributed for the 2013 Excellence in Multistate Research Award nominees. Three stories about key impacts from multistate research projects have been pitched as news/feature stories for various media outlets in the country. 12 impact statements have been added to Ag Is America website and all 12 were featured in a facebook post that reaches 3,868 followers. These 12 were also released in a series of tweets that reaches 26,651 followers.

Outcomes

NIMSS continues to facilitate the work of the Agric. Experiment Station Directors and Administrative Advisors in managing their multistate research portfolio in a paperless environment. Meetings are authorized through NIMSS, annual reports and minutes submitted, and the system is also used by technical committee members to communicate among themselves. Midterm reviews, peer reviews and regional committee reviews are submitted online in NIMSS, hence significantly simplifying the submission process. With all these information stored in NIMSS, past and current projects are linked and their historical data are easily accessible.

The timeline for renewing/revising a multistate project or activity had been diminished as project participants get used to using NIMSS. In majority of cases, renewal projects are ready for implementation before they expire, in most cases at least three months before the expiration date.

NIMSS is one of the databases that feed into the USDA-NIFA REEport that was implemented in 2012, and mainly used as source of program info for multistate research and related Hatch projects in the experiment stations. USDA-NIFA and Land-grant representatives held meetings to ensure that both systems meet their reporting needs and to coordinate the transition from CRIS to REEport. This cooperation continues to enrich the Land-grant and federal partnership.

The Impacts Writing component of NRSP1 had greatly enhanced the visibility of the Land-grant institutions and the success of the multistate research projects.

PDFs of all finalized Impact Statements were sent to: Advisors, Regional Executive Directors (EDs) and their assistants, NIFA representatives and the ESCOP marketing agency - kglobal. Administrative Advisors thenshared the finalized Impact Statements to all project participants, partner trade associations, regulatory organizations, and other stakeholders. They also reported using printed Impact Statements at stakeholder meetings. Assistants to the EDs had posted Impact Statements to their regional websites. kglobal featured Impact Statements on the Ag Is America website, in the weekly internal Research and Extension Highlights e-newsletter, and on the Ag Is America Twitter feed (reaching over 26,000 users) and Facebook page with about 4,000 followers. To magnify social media impressions for Impact Statements, a Twitter handle (@MRFImpacts) was established in November, which was used to re-tweet Ag Is America posts; network with specific Universities, publications, and reporters; and keep abreast of trending topics.

In November 2012, the Award of Excellence in Multistate Research was presented to NCERA-208, Response to Emerging Soybean Rust Threat. In conjunction with the presentation of that award, a press release was prepared highlighting both the project and the multistate research program. The Western Regions Office of the Executive Director coordinated the distribution of that press release with APLU, NIFA, kglobal, and the universities and institutions that participated in the winning project. As a result, multiple media outlets picked up the story bringing positive national attention to the program and greater awareness to issues related to soybean production.

The Impacts Communication Specialist will continue to pitch the impact stories to reach different audiences. To do this effectively, timely and relevant impact stories will be identified and pitched to popular press outlets such as newspapers (local and national), university newsletters, industry magazines, agriculture magazines and online news sites. More than 10 press releases have been successfully picked up by various media outlets during this reporting period.