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 FY27 OVPR Strategic Investment Program is the new process for strategic funding requests to the OVPR. This mechanism (formerly the Quarterly Strategic Investment) will provide funding broadly across the institution to strategically maximize momentum and drive our research enterprise forward to greater recognized excellence by addressing gaps, deficiencies, or opportunities. Continued growth and the accelerated ability to pursue new opportunities in an evolving funding landscape remains as a high OVPR priority. As such, this program will foster a heightened ability to thrive and pivot by supporting activities that increase capacity, increase collaboration, seed new pathways, and maintain a strong foundation of extramural funding. The program aims to ensure broad institutional alignment, structured allocation of available funds across the fiscal year, and maximized return on investments.

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.

The OVPR’s Capacity-Building for Integrating AI into Research and Development is a one-time funding opportunity that is meant to support a rapid broadening of understanding, development, and deployment of AI + research/scholarship that leads to robust knowledge transfer and sustainability across the institution.