Funding:

• Earmark specific funds for multi-state programs. These might be drawn from formula funds under the Smith-Lever or Hatch acts, or obtained from funding agencies like USAID, federal agencies other than USDA, or private-sector sources, including commodity organizations.
• Establish consistent and transparent criteria for collaborative grant programs.
• Identify and prioritize multi-state program needs so funds are spent in critical areas first.
• Tap the expertise of university business officers early in the process to aid the process of combining gifts, grants and contracts with traditional sources of monies.

Logistics:

• Gain the support of constituent groups before initiating a project—this includes students, faculty, stakeholder groups and industry. Keep them involved and informed throughout the process.
• Involve diverse partners in decision-making, and allow them to share in the successes.
• Find common ground on policies and rules, and use those areas of agreement as a starting point for collaborative efforts.
• Capitalize on Web-based communication and other information technology tools to maximize communication among collaborating partners. Initially, face-to-face meetings are needed to foster esprit de corps among the project leaders.
• Communicate the work and the results. Faculty, students, stakeholder groups, industry and university administrators need to know how successful projects are done and the results they produce.
• Develop a database of existing programs, which could be a resource to faculty, stakeholders and universities as they build their own collaborative projects. This will also better communicate what is already being done.

Cultural issues:

• Promote a new tone in leadership among university presidents, chancellors, deans, provosts and other officials that relaxes competitive mindsets and supports cooperative partnerships.
• Educate faculty on the importance of interacting with external stakeholders. Stakeholders and administrators may set the targets, but faculty will make it happen. “They’ll find the solution if we can get out of the way,” says Gale A. Buchanan, dean and director of the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. To reduce resistance, educate stakeholders about the benefits. Many universities are still held hostage by stakeholders who want “their” university to work only on “their” problems. As one conference participant observes: “There’s a longstanding bias against NIH — Not Invented Here.”
• Establish a system to credit or honor Land Grant universities and faculty members working on collaborative projects. For instance, add a section on teamwork to performance evaluations, and reward those who exhibit exceptional teamwork.
• Permit flexibility in course delivery. Base course evaluations on student output rather than faculty input. The academic structure of semesters and quarters should be weighed against the benefits of teaching blocks, in which courses are offered in intensive two- and three-week sessions more conducive to participation by out-of-state students.

Operational issues:

• Appoint a “champion.” There was unanimous agreement on the value of a champion for collaborative projects. Purdue University Dean of Agriculture Victor Lechtenberg recommends that institutions assign to one person responsibility for the collaboration revolution within the university.
  
• Identify funding sources, and work together to secure them. Standardize indirect cost accounting, and involve university business officers early in the process. Blending organizational structures—particularly university and business—can pose problems.
  
• Simplify funding. Complexity of the program funding application process was identified as another barrier. To address this, involve users in application development, and bring the business office and faculty together early on in this process.
  
  Some administrative funding requirements for multi-state collaboration can actually hinder cooperation if they become part of the legislation and not the guidance. A congressional funding incentive for multi-state programs recently resulted in hundreds of staff hours to comply with federal accounting rules.
  
  The audit process must be streamlined to be less time-consuming and cumbersome. Retroactive audits for new federal programs were cited as an example of a burdensome and ultimately, ineffectual process.
  
  
• Revisit admistrative processes. A barrier in international programs is their general bureaucracy. It will be necessary to simplify immigration policies, liability issues and internal processes among universities and other participating agencies.

USDA advisory boards and accreditation agencies will need to review and update policies, procedures and regulations to support, rather than slow, collaboration projects.