The Veterinary Services Grant Program (VSGP) is designed to support education and extension activities and practice enhancement initiatives that will enable veterinarians, veterinary students, veterinary technicians, and veterinary technician students to gain specialized skills and provide practices with additional resources (e.g., equipment, personnel) needed to more effectively mitigate veterinary service shortages in the U.S. Ultimately, this program will bolster the capacity of private practitioners to provide food animal veterinary services in designated rural veterinarian shortage situations. The purpose of VSGP is to develop, implement, and sustain veterinary services and relieve veterinarian shortage situations in the U.S., which includes insular areas (see Part VIII, D of this RFA for a definition of “insular area”). Grants will be made available on a competitive basis to: 1. Establish or expand accredited veterinary education programs, veterinary residency and fellowship programs, or veterinary internship and externship programs carried out in coordination with accredited colleges of veterinary medicine. 2. Provide continuing education and extension, including veterinary telemedicine and other distance-based education, for veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and other health professionals needed to strengthen veterinary programs and enhance food safety and public health. 3. Cover travel and living expenses of veterinary students, veterinary interns, externs, fellows, and residents, and veterinary technicians. 4. To expose students in grades 11 and 12 to education and career opportunities in food animal medicine.
Eligibility
Eligible applicants
Additional information
Applicants for the VSGP must meet all the requirements cited in this RFA. Failure to meet the eligibility criteria by the application deadline may result in exclusion from consideration or preclude NIFA from making an award. For those new to Federal financial assistance, NIFA’s Grants Overview provides highly recommended information about grants and other resources to help understand the Federal awards process.
Applications may only be submitted by the entities listed below if they carry out programs or activities that will: 1) substantially relieve veterinary shortage situations; and 2) support or facilitate private veterinary practices engaged in the care of food animals and address food safety and public health concerns for the community.
Eligible Applicants for EET
1. State, regional, or national organization supporting food animal veterinary programs.
2. Allied or professional food animal veterinary organization recognized by the American Veterinary Medical Association,
3. College or school of veterinary medicine accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Association,
4. University research foundation or veterinary medical foundation,
5. Department of veterinary science or department of comparative medicine accredited by the U.S. Department of Education,
6. State agricultural experiment station or Research Farm (1890 institutions),
7. State, local, or tribal government agency.
Eligible Applicants for RPE
1. For-profit or non-profit entity located in the United States or an Insular Area, such as a veterinary clinic or hospital, that provides mixed/large animal veterinary services in a rural area, as defined in section 343(a) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act (7 U.S.C. 1991(a)), within a current VMLRP shortage area. FY2024 veterinary shortage situation areas are found here.
2. Clinic or hospital that employs a current VMLRP awardee with a current service agreement at the time of the application and applies with reference to the single shortage area to which they are obligated to serve. If this is done, the clinic will be obligated to retain that VMLRP awardee for the 36-month duration of the VSGP award or forfeit the awarded funds (with proration for time served) upon their departure.
3. RPE awards are made to clinics, not individuals. Therefore, only a clinic (even if a solo practitioner), may apply for and be awarded an RPE grant.
4. Shortage situations must qualify as rural (as defined in Section 343(a) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act (7 U.S.C. 1991(a)).
a. VMLRP Type II shortage situations are rural.
b. For Type I shortage situations, use the USDA Rural Development’s Business Program’s Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI) map to assess “rural” eligibility. The map can be found here.
(Select Rural Business at top, then the link for RCDI, accept the disclaimer and zoom into the area of interest.)
Duplicate or Multiple Submissions –For RPE, duplicate or multiple submissions are not allowed. NIFA will disqualify both applications if an RPE applicant submits duplicate or multiple submissions. For EET, multiple submissions are allowed by different departments of eligible institutions. However, only one award will be granted per institution per year. For those new to Federal financial assistance, NIFA’s Grants Overview provides highly recommended information about grants and other resources to help understand the Federal awards process.
Multiple Awards
For those that have received a RPE award, a clinic can apply for a new VSGP-RPE award five years following the end date of the previous award.
For EET, an institution may have multiple awards that were granted from different years from different departments and different Project Directors.
Grantor contact information
Description
NIFA Support
Key Information: Business hours: Monday thru Friday, 7a.m. – 5p.m. ET, except federal holidays
Email
If you have any questions related to preparing application content.
grantapplicationquestions@usda.gov
