As LPI pursues its research agenda in the ten focus areas, it will invest in building multi-disciplinary faculty research teams around pressing land use issues. These investments will be in the form of re-grants at MSU and other universities (subgrants to MSU faculty and subcontracts with partner institutions). In particular, these investments will encourage a short-term response to immediate policy needs and long-term response to enduring land use concerns. LPI will do this in the following basic approaches:

• Develop major research initiatives related to land use policy. Priority study areas have been identified for each of the ten LPI focus areas and have been or will be identified for research initiatives for many of the priority areas. In addition, research projects and initiatives will be developed in response to emerging and urgent issues. LPI will build collaborative faculty teams around these research initiatives and emerging issue areas. It is anticipated that these teams could also function in a resource or outreach capacity to serve regional, statewide, national, and international policy makers, either for long-range efforts or to deal with emergency issues.
• Support land use research efforts other than through LPI research initiatives. The primary form of this support will be in grant-writing assistance and exploration of funding sources. For faculty who have demonstrated a research capacity in land use, and who could use funds to continue their work while seeking external funding sources, LPI may provide small, one-time bridge grants.
• LPI seeks faculty to participate in focused, short term projects to inform policy makers on pressing land use issues. This will be funded through mini-grants for such efforts as researching and writing white papers, policy briefs and fact sheets.

LPI is currently developing an expertise database that will include faculty from MSU and partner institutions. This database will be used to help build faculty teams. Faculty wishing to be considered for LPI research initiative teams and focused projects should submit an expertise survey.

Land Use Grants Initiative
LPI Land Use Grants in Research and Outreach Initiative (2004-2006) was developed to help create opportunities to advance MSU scientific capability in land use research and outreach. The goal is to provide outstanding opportunities for MSU faculty researchers who wish to conduct collaborative, policy-relevant, results-driven research and outreach projects.

External Grant Opportunities
Land Policy Institute posts current grant funding opportunities appropriate for teams comprised of MSU faculty and their other higher education partners. Grant Opportunities are researched weekly and posted every Friday by 5pm.

For more information on LPI research funding, please contact: research@landpolicy.msu.edu.