History

Background

The demand for agricultural crops is expected to more than double by 2050. This is due largely to an increase in world population, which is anticipated to grow to over 9 billion people by 2050, as well as increasing consumption of meat and dairy products and the use of biomass in biofuel production. Meeting the goal of doubling crop production by 2050 is a major challenge. Indeed, between 1985 and 2005, crop yields per acre increased only about 20% (Ray et al. 2012). If this increase alone were to continue until 2050, we would fall well short of demand. Moreover, the increases in yields for the major crops that feed the world—maize, rice, wheat and soybeans—have stagnated in many regions, including within the U.S. (Ray et al. 2012; Grassini et al. 2013). In addition, the current period of climate instability has had major negative impacts on crop productivity. To meet the rising demand of the coming decades, the Royal Society calls for a second green revolution, an approach they describe as a “sustainable intensification of global agriculture”. This goal will require the development of crops that are more resistant to abiotic and biotic stresses including drought, high temperature, flooding, disease, and insect pests.

A Decade of Resilience

The Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) was formally established in 2016 as part of Michigan State University’s Global Impact Initiative, a strategic effort designed to address pressing global challenges through interdisciplinary research. PRI was conceived and proposed by a group of prominent MSU plant scientists, including founding director Michael Thomashow, Gregg Howe, Sheng Yang He, and Brad Day. Their proposal built on MSU’s longstanding strengths in plant science and articulated a vision for advancing plant resilience research.

Using internal seed funding and institutional support, PRI functioned as a catalyst to connect researchers across diverse fields. The faculty emphasized the importance of integrating fundamental and applied research by defining three initial areas of emphasis: understanding plant performance under rising temperatures, investigating the role of microbial communities in plant resilience, and improving legumes as globally significant crops facing increasing environmental pressures. Collectively, these efforts established PRI as a productive, interdisciplinary research body and reinforced MSU’s leadership in plant science.

Over its first decade, PRI evolved from a strategic institutional initiative into a prominent center for plant resilience research, entering a new phase of development with the appointment of Seung Yon (Sue) Rhee as director in 2023. Under Rhee’s leadership, PRI has thrived as a dynamic, collaborative research environment while growing in scope. New flagship research initiatives build upon and integrate the strengths of PRI laboratories, combining environmental sensing, advanced genomics, controlled climate experimentation, and chemical signaling to better understand and predict plant responses to environmental stress. The institute has also strengthened its role as a hub for training and mentorship through initiatives including the PRI Seed Grant Program and PRI Networking Hour. Emphasizing the importance of team science at a global scale, PRI leads large, collaborative initiatives such as the NSF Global Center C-SPIRIT and the First International Summit on Plant Resilience. These efforts reinforce PRI’s strategic vision to be at the forefront of advancing plant resilience research and scientific community-building not only at MSU, but across the globe.

PRI’s ten-year history reflects the profound effect that cooperative, impact-driven science can have in an era defined by unprecedented environmental pressures. Together, PRI will continue to pursue meaningful solutions to the grand challenges of the 21st Century for decades to come.