In 2020, the University Libraries invited university-affiliated researchers across campus to apply to a new data grant program to purchase commercially available datasets that would support their work. 

The program’s goal is to build a data collection for broad use by the University of Arizona community.

The committee recently selected Yevheniia Varyvoda, a researcher and interdisciplinary environmental scientist in the Community Environment & Policy Department in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, as the winning applicant. The funded dataset, a report and data on the global ancient grains market, is now accessible through the University of Arizona Research Data Repository, a service provided by the Libraries Data Cooperative team. 

"I am so appreciative of the UA Libraries' data grant program committee for the support of my data grant application,” said Varyvoda. “I hope that the available dataset will not only serve my personal research needs, but also the whole UA’s research and scientific community."

Varyvoda explained that the importance of ancient grains to fuel and sustain resilient food systems is recognized by leading organizations working to end hunger, particularly for their critical capability to diversify livelihood portfolio and provide plant-sourced healthy nutrition in the face of systemic shocks and stresses. 

“The dataset is important to provide the rationale of advancing regional and local food systems resilience by scaling up utilization of ancient grains along all components of food systems to architect indirect nutrition interventions and climate-smart approaches."

Read about last year's inaugural winner. 

Data grant program committee 

Committee members include Cindy Elliott, Jim Martin, and Niamh Wallace, with special thanks to Fernando Rios.