Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental SciencesCooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder
CIRES Strategic Plan
A roadmap for 2022-2027
CIRES Strategic Plan
A roadmap for 2022-2027
Navigating wild terrain, scientists carry gear to install land-based instruments on a small rock island in northwestern Greenland in August 2018.
- Twila Moon/CIRES
In 2021, several CIRES Fellows and other staff embarked on an effort to revise the institute's strategic plan. Our strategic imperatives are described below.
Strategic Imperative #1: Advance our robust and creative research capabilities to further knowledge in the environmental sciences and the realization of its benefits.
- Support the continued excellence and development of research, data, outreach, and engagement programs.
- Be responsive to and support researchers and research groups who identify and want to capitalize on opportunities for innovative new research directions.
- Create mechanisms that encourage graduate students to catalyze research collaborations across CIRES groups in both CU and NOAA.
- CIRES Early Career Assembly (CECA) with support from the Associate Director for Science
- Professional training
- AI workshop (NOAA and Earth Lab)
- Innovative Research Program annual poster session
- Braiding Your River professional development series (led by the CIRES Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation)
- Wildfire workshop
- CU Boulder Research and Innovation Office (RIO) seed grant funding for X-heat
- ADVANCEing FieldSafety online course
- Geodesy hires
- Earth Lab data faculty hire
- Define a protocol for identifying pivot points given trends in metrics.
- Establish transparent decision-making and implementation processes.
- CIRES Fellows retreat
- Strategic Imperatives Champions committees
Strategic Imperative #2: Strategically link research groups and improve the mobility of our people and ideas to enhance innovation and interdisciplinarity across CIRES.
- Host and encourage participation in campus and NOAA seminar series.
- Rendezvous 2022-2024
- CIRES Summer Picnic 2022-2023
- Weekly Events & Buzz emails
- Distinguished Lecture Series
- Access and Cultural Innovation (ACI) guest speaker events, including collaboration with NOAA
- Casual get-togethers & appreciation events for postdocs, and early career scientists (CIRES Early Career Assembly)
- NOAA Seminar Series
- Provide NOAA and CU Boulder lab tours for research teams / students / postdocs.
- NOAA Boulder tours
- Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation (CEEE) volunteer project with NOAA leadership
- Create mechanisms to make it easier for CIRES@NOAA and NOAA scientists to guest lecture and help with classes on campus.
- Guest lectures for classes during COVID
- Guest lectures for classes during COVID
- Organize expert-to-expert meetings on specific topics with contributions from across CIRES.
- Arrange panel discussions on different themes with experts from across CIRES (with themes proposed by CIRES members).
- Hold retreats to bring people together, crossing disciplinary themes.
- Fund Innovative Research Program, Graduate Student Research Award Program, and Visiting Fellows Program for cross-CIRES research activities.
- The Associate Director for Science facilitates and coordinates cross-disciplinary activities.
- Define innovation for different job types (staff, researchers, students, faculty) and areas of improvement (leadership, diversity, inclusivity, outreach).
- Compensation project & pay equity study
- The new CIRES website launched in 2023
- The new personnel management tool
- New prompts included in the Annual Summary of Accomplishments (ASA) process
- Develop programs and activities that encourage people to communicate who don’t typically interact with each other (students, fellows, early-career researchers, staff, centers, etc.)
- ADVANCEing FieldSafety online course
- CIRES Early Career Assembly activities
- Rendezvous 2022-2024
- Polar Science Early Career Community Office (PSECCO)
- Dialogic Skills workshop series with MENV
- Identify meeting space outside of secure areas.
- Meetings at CIRES that would normally be at NOAA
- Outdoor meeting spaces at NOAA
- Hybrid seminars with electronic attendance are now standard practice
- Provide opportunities for shared supervision of scientific staff and students.
Strategic Imperative #3: Promote access and cultural innovation through robust workforce development programs, inspiring engagement, collaboration, and leadership at all levels.
- Assess employee satisfaction on a regular basis and encourage participation in campus culture surveys.
- Remote work agreements
- Institute Culture Survey 2024
- Regular evaluation of events
- Track personnel complaints and employee relations issues.
- Auto-notification of promotion timing to supervisor & employee
- Compensation project & pay equity study
- Anonymous feedback form
- HR tracking of complaints and employee issues
- CIRES Members' Council (CMC) regular meetings with the Access and Cultural Innovation (ACI) Director
- Employee 1:1 consultations with the DEI Director
- ACI committee meetings
- Evaluate retention efforts and programs for existing employees, including monitoring turnover rates, incentivizing completion of exit interview surveys, and performing stay interviews.
- Exit interviews
- Supervisor training
- HR and Associate Director for Science monitor turnover
- Onboarding website
- Increase engagement levels through CIRES-wide events such as town halls and cross-disciplinary workshops.
Regular online Town Halls and in-person listening sessions- CIRES Early-Career Assembly (CECA) newsletter and events
- Visiting Fellows Program and postdoctoral researchers get-together events
- Dialogic Skills Workshop series
- Graduate student appreciation event
- CIRES Access and Cultural Innovation (ACI) Guest Speaker events
- CIRES ACI Newsletter
- Implement CU HR training as appropriate.
- Develop and implement new, evidence-based, CIRES-specific trainings.
- Annual Summary of Accomplishments (ASA) trainings, including an annual information session on Career Tracks for associate and research scientists
- CIRES Mentoring program trainings
- ADVANCEing FieldSafety online course (safety and anti-harassment training)
- CIRES supervisor training
- Training for international/visa-holding employees and supervisors
- Executive coaching for Senior Management Team
- Braiding Your River professional development series, led by the CIRES Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation
- Promote trainings and related CIRES professional development funding.
- CIRES Access and Cultural Innovation (ACI) Newsletter
- CIRES Admin news (monthly email)
- Collect feedback via the ASA process to inform professional development programming.
- New prompts in the Annual Summary of Accomplishments (ASA) process
- Career Tracks promotion committee
- Access and Cultural Innovation (ACI) trainings and surveys
- Implicit Bias training
- Bystander training
- Effective Feedback training
- Group norms consultations
- Institute discussions with graduate students to determine the nature and organization of an effective mentoring program for that group.
- Events and annual mentoring workshop led by Associate Director for Science
- Graduate student mentoring program
- Empowering Future Environmental Leaders: Graduate students participate in small group sessions led by CIRES professional scientists, focusing on topics like networking, skill development, cross-discipline collaboration & community building, and a career panel. This program fosters learning and network-building through interactive workshops tailored to student-chosen topics.
- CIRES Education and Outreach (now the Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation) won an honorable mention for the CU System President's Inclusive Excellence Award in 2022
- Inclusive hiring guide
- Compensation project & pay equity study
- Career Tracks include sub-tracks
- Dialogic Skills Workshop series
- Community-engaged research working group
- CIRES Science Pathways Program
Strategic Imperative #4: Enhance the impact, accessibility, and reach of our science and data to the broader scientific community, NOAA, educators and students, policymakers, and the general public.
- Support “broader impacts” work in new science proposals and connect researchers to existing opportunities to have broader impact.
- The CIRES Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation (CEEE) portal on InsideCIRES within the proposal tool
- Communications support in proposals
- Program advertisements and announcements by graphic designer
- Regularly connect policymakers, journalists, and the public who have questions with scientists who may have answers.
- CIRES experts travel to Washington, D.C.
- Bipartisan discussions
- CIRES and scientists’ social media
- Senior Management Team and Communications regularly work with CU Boulder's government relations
- National Academies of Sciences / Congressional panel participation
- National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), Western Water Assessment (WWA), and other webinars
- Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) - CIRES scientist was the lead author of the water chapter
- Ozone assessment coordination
- Science show-and-share, led by the CIRES Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation (CEEE)
- News releases, stories, and pitching to journalists
- Talking points, hearing preparations, and testimony writing
- Enhance strategic communication on specific, focused topics through hiring, making connections, and expanding graphics and data visualization capabilities.
- CIRES IT and Communications data visualization expertise
- Video and animation projects
- Collaborate with other departments and student groups to make science-based content more accessible to broader audiences.
- Contribute to CU Boulder's Research and Innovation Office (RIO) annual report
- Strategic Relations annual highlights
- NOAA annual summaries
- Art climate talk at Analytical Supergroup
- Spheres magazine
- Work toward a culture that values authentic research-related communications and outreach, including in performance evaluations.
- Access and Cultural Innovation (ACI) newsletter
- Buzz newsletter
- Nominate CIRES scientists for awards
- Track Altmetrics and media hits for CIRES science
- Outstanding Performance Awards recognition
- Build more skillful science communicators by supporting, enabling, and training scientists and students who want to do outreach or communications to develop their skills.
- 1:1 feedback and prep for media interviews
- Communication training for early career scientists
- NOAA-based communication trainings