WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is requesting comment on a draft Request for Applications (RFA) to build new opportunities through partnerships with universities and colleges. Throughout the Agency's history, USAID has partnered with institutions around the world to tackle health, environmental, agricultural, and governance challenges. However, approaches to development now include the private sector, foundations, the military, and academia. In this regard, USAID may expand engagement with the academic community focused on solving development challenges.

The draft Request for Applications (RFA) issued today is focused on building strategic partnerships to explore new multidisciplinary approaches to development. These partnerships might focus on solutions analysis based in science and technology, testing new models and technologies for development, and exploring new approaches to development. Comments and questions based on the draft (RFA) are being accepted through January 31st, 2012.

Notional awards would be multi-year individual or consortium cooperative partnerships, each of which would be part of a broader network.

A pre-solicitation workshop/webinar will be held on Tuesday January 24th, 2012 from 1-3pm EST. To register for the workshop, please click here.

The draft RFA can be found here and on grants.gov.

Questions and comments should be directed to UERFA@usaid.gov.

For more information about USAID's partnerships with universities and colleges, please visit www.usaid.gov/universities.