Letter from the Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation 2021-22
Colleagues and friends,
I’m delighted you have decided to explore this collection of highlights from the University of Colorado Boulder’s research, scholarship and creative work in 2021-22. The stories paint a compelling picture of our progress towards our strategic imperatives: Lead. Innovate. Impact.
CU Boulder again attracted record levels of research funding this year—$658 million in gifts and awards, including $474 million from federal agencies—to power its research and innovation enterprise. Our research funding totals serve as a milepost to assess and compare our productivity with other top research universities, but they reflect only part of the impact of our faculty, students, staff and partners.
In addition to our continued growth in world-class sponsored research, CU Boulder remains home to a vibrant ecosystem of discovery, collaboration and innovation that cannot be measured in dollars. This rich combination of research, scholarship and creative work is vital to CU Boulder’s appeal to top faculty and researchers in a range of disciplines, the most promising students across the world, and a wide variety of leading organizations who choose to partner with us to achieve greater impact.
From environmental sciences to music, from space to the social sciences, and from education to quantum science and technology, CU Boulder is making a difference. Please visit colorado.edu/rio to take a deeper dive into our research and innovation enterprise or visit colorado.edu/today for a full picture of everything taking place across the university.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these stories of the incomparable faculty, students and staff who are helping CU Boulder Lead. Innovate. Impact.
Best regards,
Massimo Ruzzene
Acting Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation,
Dean of the Institutes
Research & Innovation Office