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Innovative Research ProgramThe Innovative Research Program is designed to stimulate a creative research environment within CIRES and to encourage synergy between disciplines and research colleagues. The intent is to provide an uncomplicated mechanism for supporting small research efforts that can quickly provide concept viability or rule out further consideration. The program encourages novel, unconventional or fundamental research that might otherwise be difficult to fund. Funded projects are inventive, sometimes opportunistic, and do not necessarily have an immediate practical application or guarantee of success. This program supports pilot or exploratory studies, which may provide rapid results. Activities are not tightly restricted and can range from instrument development, lab testing, and field observations to model advancement. CIRES-wide competitions are conducted each year to foster an innovative research environment where risk taking is allowed and even encouraged. Winners are selected by an interdisciplinary team and results are presented the following year at a poster reception. New this year! CIRES' new initiative on Energy and the Environment will be supported by up to three additional IRP awards. This Initiative is focused on the environmental effects of the production and use of present and future energy sources. Driven by limited supplies of fossil fuels, as well as concerns about climate and energy security, our society's future energy will come from different sources than today. These new energy sources will have their own effects on the environment, and environmental science has an important role to play in evaluating and predicting these effects. The Energy & Environment initiative will initially be focused on, but not limited to, two specific energy sources. First, an increasing amount of transportation fuel is made from corn and other biofuels crops. The production and use of biofuels affects many aspects of the environment such as the atmosphere, soils, water resources, surface heat fluxes, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, and greenhouse gas concentrations. Second, the production of natural gas by hydraulic fracturing has strongly increased in recent years, but is a known source of emissions to the atmosphere, and has the potential to affect ground water and ecosystems. Scientific study of all these aspects is required to make sure that newly developed energy sources are not only technologically feasible and economically viable, but also have a net beneficial effect on the environment. More details on the Energy & Environment Initiative can be found at http://cires.colorado.edu/science/initiatives/ee/. For more information about the the Innovative Research Program, contact Suzanne van Drunick (303-492-1227, suzanne.vandrunick@colorado.edu). |
2012 Committee
Suzanne van Drunick, Program Director |
