The OVPR launched the Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships (CIP) program in 2014, followed by the Pre-Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships (PRECIP) program in 2016. These two strategic programs were created to foster a pipeline of novel interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary partnerships to pursue major opportunities that forge solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. The PRECIP program was designed to support emerging development of high-impact, early-stage research collaborations, with the goal of exploring transformative ideas while preparing new teams for increased readiness and competitiveness in the CIP program. The CIP program facilitated and positioned more established interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research teams, who were tackling grand societal and scientific challenges, to achieve greater impacts leading to larger funding opportunities.

After supporting three CIP and two PRECIP cohorts, the OVPR updated the Catalyst Program to meet evolving needs and priorities across an increasingly mixed funding and partnership landscape. Success in strategic and transformative funding areas often requires strong interdisciplinary teams, cross-sector partnerships, grand ideas, and an intersection of center-like activities that bridge research, scholarship, workforce development, translation to practice, community engagement, and more. In 2025, the OVPR announced the launch of the revamped Catalyst Program, now with three phases: Ready, Set, and Go.

Ready is the first in this series of programs, aimed at enhancing the research enterprise by inspiring and priming the Catalyst-level vision and collaborative connections of future Catalyst teams. It is intended to prompt transformative teams, or people looking to create transformative teams, to begin thinking big and begin making connections. Ready launched in Spring 2025.

Set is the second program phase, aimed at preparing nascent interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary teams to pursue substantial, high-impact funding opportunities and substantial, multi-sector collaborations under an increasingly broad funding portfolio. The anticipated outcomes of this targeted team development program are decreased risk and increased readiness levels for teams interested in pursuit of noteworthy, large-scale funding opportunities. In this phase, Set teams are prepared for other OVPR strategic programs, including the Go phase of the Catalyst Program. Set launched in Fall 2025.

Announcement of the Go phase of the Catalyst Program is anticipated in FY26.

The Democracy Scholarship Small Grant Program is an internal investment initiative aimed at advancing scholarship that addresses grand challenges in democracy and civic engagement, offering support through two tracks: 1) single investigator and disciplinary teams; and 2) interdisciplinary teams. The program provides small grants to stimulate research, scholarship, and creative artistry in democracy broadly defined and aims to amplify CSU as a recognized leader in this area of scholarship.

The OVPR Quarterly Strategic Investment process, initiated in fiscal year (FY) 2015 (FY15), provides funding across the institution. This ongoing program offers support for a broad range of research, scholarship, and discovery activities. The program is not intended to sustain or provide seed funding for individual research projects, nor replace the start-up/retention funding process, funding under the Core/Specialized Facilities RFP, or requests for mandatory cost share on extramural funding proposals. Rather, the process is intended to provide OVPR funding support in a structured manner to address gaps, deficiencies, or opportunities in the research enterprise.

The Vice President of Research (VPR) Graduate Fellows Program at Colorado State University supports excellence in graduate student research and promotes interdisciplinary work by engaging the best and brightest students from graduate programs across the institution. VPR Graduate Fellows receive research funding, professional development, networking opportunities, and travel funding aimed at preparing them to become thought leaders.

The TUNE designation program invests in thematic excellence through a process that encourages ideas and collaborations with local, regional, national, and international impact, while reflecting institutional priorities and strengths. This process is designed to elicit broad representation and participation from the campus community (including faculty and research scientists/scholars) and across all mission areas of our land-grant foundation, with emphasis on research and scholarship activities. The basis for TUNEs is an established track record of nationally and internationally recognized excellence.