91¶ÌÊÓƵ

The 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Boulder Research & Innovation Office (RIO) announced aÌýtargeted realignment in November to enhance strategic integration across key areas and best position RIO to serve the university's growing research and innovation needs. The shift focused on RIO’s internal organization and operations and was designed to support long-term growth, collaboration and impact.Ìý

RIO’s operations are now organized into four pillars to encourage more cross-team activity and distribute decision-making more broadly and flexibly. We sat down with Bryn Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships, to discuss the new Innovation & Partnerships team, which brings togetherÌýVenture Partners at 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Boulder, theÌýInnovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative andÌýWorkforce Development. The realignment is designed to boost effectiveness across the three units and drive larger goals, including entrepreneurial activity and training, new company and job creation, economic development and commercialization of research discoveries.

How will these changes enhance strategic integration across innovation and partnership efforts?

The three units that are coming together—Venture Partners, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, and Workforce Development—share many commonalities. They all provide training and support for an entrepreneurial mindset, and they all connect the university community with the business community. The realignment brings together three great teams that were already working together. By bringing them closer together organizationally, we can better serve our partners. If a corporate partner or investor engages with the university, for example, they can explore a wider range of commercialization, entrepreneurship and workforce opportunities in an integrated environment.

How does this closer integration of initiatives benefit the university?

Here is a concrete example of how the university benefits. 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Boulder is a national leader in spinning out new companies based on innovations created through university research. However, if the university unit enabling spinout creation is separate from the unit for undergraduate student entrepreneurship, it may be more difficult for students to benefit from the university’s startup prowess. More seamless integration will only help us advance 91¶ÌÊÓƵ's impact through innovation. This realignment opens up many new opportunities to broaden the resources available to our university community. It’s already begun. We are seeing 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Boulder students engaging directly with spinouts through the New Venture Challenge.

How will the realignment affect the support and resources available to startups and entrepreneurial ventures associated with 91¶ÌÊÓƵ Boulder?

The realignment will enhance the experience of our students, faculty and staff who choose to engage in our existing innovation resources. Primarily, that will be through easier navigation. Someone inside the university or an external partner typically has multifaceted needs. Let’s consider a faculty member with a startup company commercializing a quantum innovation they created at the university. That company might want to hire specially trained students, license intellectual property, participate in accelerator programs and perhaps do other things too. Our new integrated Innovation & Partnerships team can help with all of it.

How do you envision the impact of this integration a year or two from now?

This integration provides a foundation for future growth. An organizational change like this does not itself produce the large-scale impact we seek in giving our students incredible entrepreneurship experiences or turning breakthrough research into innovations that help society, but it’s an important step along the way. I expect that, in a few years, we will see increases in faculty and student engagement in innovation and be able to tie those increases back to many beneficial changes and improvements, one of which is the organizational change that brought several of the university’s key innovation units together. Similarly, for our external partners including investors and companies, this realignment will provide a more seamless and integrated experience of interacting with the university through a single point of contact. Being one of the very best universities in the world for innovation will require a holistic effort; this is one step along a much larger journey.