You need a Hatch Project if you are a faculty member with a 20% or greater AAES appointment. Through Hatch funding, AAES provides opportunities for funding research projects, travel, and equipment. A Hatch Project or official participation in a Multistate Project is required of AAES faculty for application for such funding. Please note that Hatch and matching funds pay the research part of your salary.

The first step in getting a Hatch Project approved is submitting a proposal or plan of work to your departmental Hatch Project committee. Once the project proposal is reviewed through the departmental Hatch Project committee, it is submitted to the AAES through the NRS system for review and approval. Kelly Pippin will assign the hatch project an organization number. Once the AAES administrator approves it, the project is submitted to USDA for approval (known as NIFA review). In most cases, USDA approves the projects without modification, but the approval process can take several months and multiple revisions.

No. Hatch Projects are “plans of work.” Proposing and receiving approval for a Hatch Project is not directly linked with an award of funding to conduct the proposed research. Funds for conducting research outlined in Hatch Projects should be sought from various other sources such as AAES seed funding and especially from research grants from federal, regional, state, and local funding agencies.

A Hatch Project is not official until it is approved by USDA, which is the final step in getting a Hatch Project. The Hatch Project approval process can take significant time, so please start early.

Usually, Hatch Projects are active for five years. It is the responsibility of faculty members to ensure their Hatch Projects are active. To check on the status of Hatch Projects, log in to the NRS and search for your project. You may search for the project by your name, email address, project accession number or project title, etc., and you will see your project status. Your project should be active if you are not past the termination/expiration date.

You will need first to notify your department head, Dr. Arthur Appel, and Kelly Pippin about this major change. After further discussions, we will either terminate your current hatch project in the NRS (if it expires soon) or ask you to modify your current hatch (if it is not close to the end date). In the case of a hatch termination, you must write a new hatch serving as an umbrella/reflection for all your current research activities. There is no renewal or extension of your current hatch. Each time you write a new hatch project, it must go through the internal review process before initiating it in the NRS. Refer to the ‘Project Review’ tab on this page

In early December, the COA Research Office will remind you to submit your annual results to the NRS via email with detailed instructions. The COA Research Office requires that you submit your annual result by January 15 to allow us to review, approve, and move it forward for NIFA review. The report period covers Oct. 1 through Sept. 30 of the previous year. If you have a project active in this period, you are required to file an annual result.

Note: Since FY22, the REEport no longer houses hatch projects, and all hatch projects have been migrated to the NRS. Your regular grant project reporting should still be completed in the REEport system.

If your hatch project reaches its 5th year and ends sooner than or on Sep 30th, the project report should be a Final Report/Result. If the project is still active, the report is an annual progress Report. The NRS will label your report/result type based on your project end date.

File Appendix E and obtain approval from the AAES Director.

In most cases, a group of principal investigators representing multiple states identifies a research area that requires collaboration among many researchers across state lines. These researchers then initiate the process of establishing a Multistate Project by working with their respective experiment station directors.

The project proposal is prepared in a fashion similar to a Hatch Project, but the project is presented by an experiment station director from one of the collaborating institutions to the regional experiment station directors for discussion and approval. Once approved by the regional experiment station directors association, the project is filed with USDA for approval. During this process, individual scientists are invited to participate in the project by the Executive Director of the regional experiment station directors.

When new Multistate Projects are being established or terminating projects are being revised, faculty will be invited to join. E-mails will be sent to faculty informing them of new projects or revisions of projects. These e-mail notices include links to more information on particular projects.

1. Information on Multistate Projects is available on the National Information Management and Support System (NIMSS) website.
2. AAES faculty who are interested in participating in a Multistate Project must complete an Appendix E form on the NIMSS website. Involvement in any Multistate Projects must be approved by the Director of AAES.

For more information on initiating a multistate project, contact Gary A. Thompson, Executive Director, Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors, University of Arkansas, at gat009@uark.edu.

Not necessarily. It depends on whether your project is an official Multistate Project (See “What is a Multistate Project?” for details). If your project is not an official Multistate Project, collaborating with researchers from multiple states does not qualify you for Multistate Project funding.