The University of Minnesota has an exceptional array of researchers working on a variety of aspects related to soybean improvement for Minnesota growers. While university departments are an efficient way to organize curricula and conduct business, they also can tend to inhibit collaboration between researchers from different yet complimentary disciplines. The formation of an academic center is one way to help form bridges between departments, bring researchers together, attract new researchers, and enhance communication and outreach around a single problem. To this end, we soybean researchers at the University of Minnesota have spent the last year and founding and organizing the Soybean Research Center to bring together UMN researchers working on a broad array of aspects related to soybean improvement and utilization. During the past eighteen months, we have successfully created a center consisting of 25 members, hired a coordinator, held Center events, developed a website, and initiated a campaign to attract outside funds. We feel the Center has been highly successful in helping to bring together soybean researchers across campus, including students, and raising our profile on a national level. During the next year, we want to continue these activities, in addition to establishing a mode of better promoting research activities to the public, recruit new researchers to the Center, and solicit funds from private organizations.

Objective 1. Continue developing the University of Minnesota Soybean Center for all (present and future) UMN soybean researchers to join and participate in.

Goal 1. Elevate UMN soybean research through providing the opportunity for creation of synergy among all soybean researchers from different disciplines.
Goal 2. Enhance communication and coordination of UMN soybean research activities through a better and more sustained and coordinated presence on the web, social media, and press releases.
Goal 3. Attract new researchers to soybean from a broad array of departments that do not traditionally work on agricultural commodities such as soybean.

A functioning University of Minnesota Soybean Research Center that will enable better communication between soybean researchers and producers, ultimately enhancing the quality of soybean research conducted in Minnesota.

Updated September 12, 2023:
Just before the official start date of this project, we held a spring networking event so all soybean researchers on campus could connect with one another. After May, the main activity was the hiring of a center admin and communications specialist to help us organize events and promote communications. She is part time working for the center at 10 hours per week and has been a tremendous help. The main activity she helped with (and which Seth Naeve and Aaron Lorenz, Center Co-directors) were involved with this quarter was organization of a major Soybean Research Center Field Day. We had over 100 participants on August 31, and presentations from eight researcher groups, including their students and postdocs. Over 15 posters were presented. Overall, we feel like this event was a major success and will launch our campaign to bring in external stakeholders and raise additional funds. We received lots of positive feedback. See this new article published in Agweek.

https://www.agweek.com/crops/soybeans/umns-soybean-research-center-puts-work-on-display

Updated November 8, 2023:

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The establishment of the University of Minnesota Soybean Center would create synergy among soybean researchers, attract leveraged funding, and facilitate better communication and coordination of all UMN soybean research. This will ultimately lead to more collaborative projects tackling larger and more complex problems of relevance to Minnesota soybean growers.