CAHNRS: Doing The People’s Research
WSU is one of a number of American universities that were founded as Land Grant institutions. The concept, first signed into law by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, was that the United States would support institutions of higher learning in return for those institutions supporting activities that were needed for the nation to grow. These included an emphasis on the practical arts, farming, fishing and forestry, ranching, mining, and manufacturing. These universities were to be places the people could go for expert advice in these subjects, where students could learn how to do things “right” and where, if needed, new ways of doing things “right” could be developed.
This concept is more than 150 years old but it is not an anachronism. The industries have evolved, the population has grown and the communities have changed. The horses are now horsepower and sophisticated computer models inform production and marketing. Crops once started with home-grown seed for home use have been replaced by well-bred cultivars, often developed and tested by university faculty working with local producers before they become available to the public. The agricultural environment has become an agro-ecosystem that is a crucial part of our world, even if it is over the horizon. And land grant universities still work as a public utility that develops and promotes practical ideas.
We do what we do as partners. WSU has a few resources, some from the grants of federal land that were their original legacy. But stakeholders, interested in our work, contribute more resources. These stakeholders may be commodity commissions wanting new crops, methods of production, or markets. They may be companies wanting to take the next step. They may be governments encouraging the development of technologies that will be useful in a future too far away to show up on the quarterly report or needing an analysis that is not driven by the needs of a special interest. The people are a special interest and, in Washington State, CAHNRS does the people’s research.
WSU has mechanisms to enable faculty to find partners and partners to find research expertise that might be useful to them. The links on this page were chosen to help with this. Some are about finding a shared interest, some are about setting up mechanisms for collaboration. Some of the work we do can be done pro bono, “for the good”, but extensive projects require that stakeholders bring resources to the table to match the time and expertise of our faculty and the community of scholarship they bring with them.