Research and Development
Grants, Fellowships, and Sponsorships
The Coleman Institute’s mission is to catalyze and integrate advances in science, engineering, and technology to promote the quality of life and independent living of people with cognitive disabilities. The Institute's primary mechanism to do this is by providing funding to CU faculty researchers on all of CU's campuses, and their research partners worldwide. Grants are made using several criteria:
- A focus on applied cognitive technology for use by people with intellectual, developmental and related cognitive disabilities or their caregivers
- The quality of the research and/or development being proposed
- Evidence of interdisciplinary and multi-campus or multi-institutional collaboration
- Ability to leverage federal grants and other funding
- Potential for technology transfer and commercialization of intellectual property
- Dissemination of research results or developments
The Coleman Institute Fellowship Program makes awards in three categories: graduate fellowships, postdoctoral fellowships, and faculty fellowships. In addition, the Institute provides sponsorships for disability/technology conferences and makes small grants for other mission-related special opportunities. Since its inception, the Institute has made over 100 grants.
View some Examples of Active Coleman Institute Funded Research.
View the list of Current University of Colorado Faculty who Have Received Coleman Institute Grants.
The Coleman Institute encourages commercialization of intellectual property derived from the research and development efforts of faculty by working closely with CU's Technology Transfer Office (TTO). Institute funding has supported research and development on "smart" transportation systems, "smart" residential care systems, a personal digital assistant (PDA) based speech training program for children with Down syndrome and patients with Parkinson's, recreation technology adapted for people with cognitive disabilities, computer-based technology for teaching reading to students with cognitive limitations, and web-based resources for teachers, parents, and students with disabilities in the Boulder Valley public schools. Funding has also been provided for an initiative to promote accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with cognitive disabilities including standardization of technologies, a single sign-on system, content adjustments, and specialized user support.
Biomedical science and technology projects funded by the Institute include drug delivery systems for conditions such as schizophrenia, immunological studies of AIDS/HIV, the development of bio-compatible electrodes for in vivo recording and stimulation in the brain using Cellular Engineering Micro Systems and wireless telemetry, and non-human stem cell research in a mouse model of Down syndrome. In addition, the Coleman Institute provided critical funding for graduate student fellowships to support the establishment of the PhD program in Geropsychology at UCCS and it continues to provide developmental funding to the UCCS Center for Aging, in support of a new National Center on Aging Caregivers for People with Cognitive Disabilities.
Link to the Coleman Institute's largest funded project: CU's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies (RERC-ACT)