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A. Eligibility Requirements Applicants for the NLGCA must meet all the requirements discussed in this RFA. Applications may only be submitted by a Non-Land Grant College of Agriculture (NLGCAs) certified as such by the NIFA at the time of application. A current list of NLGCA’s certified by NIFA can be found at the NLGCA List Resource webpage. Award recipients may subaward to organizations not eligible to apply to this grants program, providing such organizations are necessary for the conduct of the project. All institutions certified as NLGCA prior to December 21, 2018 must reapply for certification and meet the new criteria for NLGCA certification contained in the Federal Register Notice. In order for an institution to qualify as a NLGCA, it must be a public college or university offering a baccalaureate or higher degree in the study of agricultural sciences, forestry, or both, which is any of the 32 specified Areas of Study: Agricultural and domestic animal services; Agricultural and extension education services; Agricultural and food products processing; Agricultural business and management; Agricultural communication or agricultural journalism; Agricultural economics; Agricultural engineering; Agricultural mechanization; Agricultural production operations; Agricultural public services; Agriculture; Animal sciences; Applied horticulture or horticulture operations; Aquaculture; Equestrian/Equine Studies; Floriculture or floristry operations and management; Food science; Forest sciences and biology; Forestry; Greenhouse operations and management; International agriculture; Natural resource economics; Natural resources management and policy; Natural resources or conservation; Ornamental horticulture; Plant nursery operations and management; Plant sciences; Range science and management; Soil sciences; Turf and turfgrass management; Urban forestry; and Wood science and wood products or pulp or paper technology. If you are not sure if you are eligible to request NLGCA designation, you can look at the NLGCA Eligibility Flow Chart. In addition, Section 7102 of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 removed the opt-in, opt-out language that had previously required Hispanic Serving Agricultural Colleges and Universities (HSACU) and McIntire-Stennis Colleges and Universities to relinquish that status if they wanted to pursue NLGCA designation. There are no longer any such limitations. To request that NIFA provide certification of NLGCA status, an Authorized Representative must go to the Non-Land-Grant University designation webpage and submit a NLGCA Certification Memo indicating the institution meets the NLGCA qualifications. Within 30 days of submission, NIFA will provide the administrative point of contact specified on the request, with a certification of NLGCA designation or a response indicating why the request for certification is being denied. For the purposes of this program, the individual branches of a college or university that are separately accredited as degree-granting institutions as indicated per the Official List of Certified Non-Land Grant Colleges of Agriculture, are treated as separate institutions, and are therefore eligible to apply for NLGCA Program awards. Separate branches or campuses of a college or university that are not individually accredited as degree-granting institutions are not treated as separate institutions and are therefore not eligible to submit an application. Accreditation must be conferred by an agency or association recognized by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. NLGCA applicants may submit (as the lead applicant) any number of applications in response to this RFA; however, your institution will be limited to a maximum of two grant awards as the lead (applicant) institution. Your institution may participate in any number of NLGCA-funded projects as a partner institution in any given year. However, a Project Director is limited to one funded project, for which t