Seven High Impact Projects at UW-Madison Funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub

Seven High Impact Projects at UW-Madison Funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub

UW-Madison

UW-Madison

The University of Wisconsin­–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) recently selected seven projects for funding through the Dairy Innovation Hub initiative. The one-year grants will fund promising work in the Hub’s four priority areas: stewarding land and water resources; enriching human health and nutrition; ensuring animal health and welfare; and growing farm business and communities.

The short-term, high-impact research and outreach projects are intended to leverage existing UW–Madison expertise to provide timely results supporting the goals of the Dairy Innovation Hub, with an emphasis on addressing recommendations generated by the state’s Dairy Task Force 2.0, which completed its work in 2019.

“Research can take many years to yield results. At the same time, there are shorter term projects that we can invest in that will return immediate benefit to the dairy community,” says Troy Runge, professor of biological systems engineering, who leads the Hub’s UW–Madison campus steering committee. “That’s the purpose of these grants – tackle critical challenges leveraging existing resources to solve a problem quickly.”

Also, with Dairy Innovation Hub support, CALS recently approved six graduate student assistantships and is gearing up to hire four faculty members in the Hub’s priority areas. In addition, planning is underway for the first Dairy Summit virtual conference.

The Dairy Innovation Hub, which the state of Wisconsin is supporting to the tune of $7.8 million per year, harnesses research and development at UW–Madison, UW–Platteville and UW–River Falls campuses to keep Wisconsin’s $45.6 billion dairy community at the global forefront in producing nutritious dairy products in an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable manner. More information is at dairyinnovationhub.wisc.edu.

– Read more about the selected projects –