Iowa State recently applied to the U.S. Department of Energy for a grant that would help further research in bioenergy, but it was denied because of a minuscule error in the application.

One of the regulations of the grant competition made it unacceptable for employees of any federal agency to be included in the grant proposal, because one federal agency is not allowed to fund another federal agency.

Two faculty members, Marvin Paul Scott, associate professor of agronomy-collaborator, and Carolyn Lawrence, assistant professor of agronomy-collaborator, are employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The two professors’ names were merely included in the proposal in a list of people who would be available to help with the research efforts if the grant had been awarded the university.

That made it impossible for Iowa State’s proposal even to be considered in the competition.

“It was a big disappointment,” said Stephen Howell, director of the genetics, development and cell biology department.

The proposal was submitted in early February, and faculty members involved in the application found out soon afterward that they had been denied the grant. Howell said the grant was worth $125 million, which would have been distributed over a period of five years.

“We thought that disqualification occurred for a very minor reason,” Howell said.

Howell said a large amount of work was put into the proposal, and he would have hoped that its scientific merits would have had more effect on the results than a small error in the paperwork.

He said he hopes for other opportunities in the future.

“This has been a very good time in the bioenergy world, because there’s a tremendous amount of revenues being generated,” Howell said of the increased efforts that are being made in the field in general today.

“We will certainly be vigilant in the future,” Howell said.

The grants would have been given to fund large research centers that would have been focusing specifically on plant biotechnology.

Robert Anex, associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, said Scott and Lawrence were not a large part of the research that went into the document.

Despite the fact Anex described them as “minor players on the team,” the mere inclusion of their names disqualified the university from the competition.

“There certainly are other opportunities,” Anex said.