Watch the full video here!
Here are six key takeaways:
1. Yes, we’re still funding research.
Our research funding programs are still the heart and soul of our org. Applications may be paused for the moment, but we will continue to support our current grantees with our multi-year grants!
This year, 34 active grantees helped fill knowledge gaps by publishing 6 peer-reviewed papers, with 21 more in-progress or under review.
Next year, we will turn our attention to re-envisioning our research grants and programming to ensure they continue to be catalytic and highly impactful in a rapidly changing ecosystem.
In the meantime, we’re running an experiment in crowdfunding cell ag research in partnership with the Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition! We have $50K to fund 10-15 cell ag projects—learn more here.
2. We’re proving that we’re better together.
This year, we published the world’s first cell ag safety paper, which is the culmination of an unprecedented collective action. Building on this momentum, we launched a listening campaign with dozens of industry leaders to determine what the field’s greatest needs are, including a workshop on de-risking the field!
Next year, we intend to dig deeper into this industry-wide work, with the goal of standardizing and norming the field to accelerate our shared progress. Our newly hired research collaborations director, Dwayne, based in the Netherlands, will help expand our efforts globally.
3. We’re deepening the public conversation beyond the hype.
This year, we helped bring a more nuanced understanding of cellular agriculture to the general public through Isha’s TED mainstage talk. The talk was developed with the input of 49 industry leaders, features only images of real industry prototypes, and received 1M+ views within a month of online release!
We’re also excited to announce that we’re bringing our conference back next year! We’ll be bringing people together from across industry and academia to discuss thorny issues and share perspectives on how we can drive this field forward!
4. We’re playing the long game and it’s paying off!
Back in 2016, New Harvest helped start the cell ag Ph.D. program at Tufts university and has been fostering a cell ag research hub at the Kaplan lab ever since. We’ve invested more in this lab than any other, awarding a total of $902,583 in donor-funded grants to six researchers. Thanks to our visionary donors, this long term investment paid off this year when the Kaplan lab won a $10M grant from the USDA to establish the National Institute for Cellular agriculture. That’s a 10X return on our collective investment—talk about maximizing impact!
5. We can’t do this alone.
Of course, we can’t do what we do without the generous support of our global network of donors! This year we have our most ambitious annual fundraising goal yet: raising $2,500,000 by December 31. As of today, we are $534,796 away. And we’re hoping you can get us the rest of the way!
The single most effective way to support our work long term is by becoming a monthly donor! If you sign up today, your first two months will be doubled by a generous matching gift donor. Time is running out—help us unlock the remaining $11,000 in matching funds by Dec. 31.
Or make a one-time donation here—every dollar counts!
6. We’re so grateful to have you on board!
And last but not least, the Zoom call was a great reminder of how engaged and enthusiastic our community is. As always, we are so grateful for your time, investment and passion for this work (AND your great book recommendations—can’t wait to check out The Meat Question by Josh Berson & Big Chicken by Maryn McKenna!)
Looking for the Year in Review slides? Find them here.
