N.C. PSI Platform Goals

In the early planning stages of N.C. PSI, leaders and stakeholders recognized a series of carefully structured platforms would be necessary within the N.C. PSI organization and ecosystem to break down academic and research barriers and support and sustain interdisciplinary research teams with distinct areas of focus.

These thematic areas were conceptualized and selected based on the significant promise each represents in rapidly deploying cross-disciplinary teams to address emerging issues for North Carolina agricultural producers. As the initiative has evolved since 2014, N.C. PSI leadership has adapted these principal platforms to the three research platforms and two enabling platforms that exist today, led and coordinated by some of NC State’s most talented researchers in their respective areas. Those platforms include: Plant Improvement, Resilient Agricultural Systems, Data-Driven Plant Sciences, Education and Workforce Development, and Extension Outreach and Engagement.

While developed as individual platforms to set visions for impact and success, organize research areas of focus and build community around specific research topics, N.C. PSI’s future success will be highly contingent upon these platforms integrating seamlessly with one another; with elements of multiple platforms are often present in research projects, programs or service activities. The following goals and key initiatives recognize this interconnectivity across the N.C. PSI platforms while highlighting the distinctive nature of each platform’s composition, with both elements serving as important ways in which these platforms will help catalyze N.C. PSI’s broad success and impact years into the future. As such, platform-specific goals are listed with the corresponding alignment each has with the broader N.C. PSI strategic priorities contained within this strategic plan.