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CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Aquaculture Collaborative Research Support Program at Oregon State University has received a $2.15 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development to manage global research projects involving some three dozen institutions around the world.

OSU has managed the international aquaculture program, known as CRSP, since 1982 under a number of multi-year grants.

The focus of research this year will be on aquaculture development in coastal and inland areas, according to Hillary S. Egna, the program's director. The research will emphasize production technology, watershed management, and human welfare, health and nutrition.

"We provide foreign assistance through a combination of higher education, agriculture and natural resource management partnerships," Egna said. "It is a timely pairing of U.S. expertise and goodwill."

Most of the research projects are conducted in developing countries. OSU coordinates the effort with 12 other U.S. university partners and 23 international institutions. The Aquaculture CRSP is one of nine similar projects funded by USAID that focus on nutrition and income generation through improved food production and natural resource management in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.

A number of the projects have applications to aquaculture, aquatic resources management, poverty elimination efforts and agribusiness in the U.S., Egna said. In one recent initiative, the OSU-run Aquaculture CRSP program partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Sea Grant program to create an international model based on Sea Grant, which is a marine research, education and outreach program. New York Sea Grant at Cornell University and Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco in Mexico are leading the effort.

Another new initiative launches a fellowship program beginning in 2005-06 that provides $5,000 awards to qualified OSU graduate students who add international dimensions to their research in aquatic resources-related fields.