Program Home >
Current IRP Projects >
Past IRP Projects >
1999 |  2000 |  2001 |  2002
2003 |  2004 |  2005 |  2006
2007 |  2008

Innovative Research Program

The 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.

For more information about the the Innovative Research Program, contact Suzanne van Drunick (303-492-1227, suzanne.vandrunick@colorado.edu).

Project Awards Announced for 2007
Winners of the 9th annual Innovative Research Program competition include projects to improve hurricane forecasting and to explore the use of bacteria in cleaning up and converting toxins found in crude oil and tar.

2008 Committee
Peter Molnar, Chair
Tom Chase
Russ Monson