UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY INSTITUTE (RASEI)

Participants attend a session on "The Challenge of Developing Carbon-Free Energy: How Fast Can I Grow" at the Global Energy and Climate Conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder campus. (Photo by Glenn J. Asakawa/University of Colorado)

The University of Colorado offers a world-class community of faculty, staff, scientists, students and facilities. CU is a top ten US public research university, the only American Association of Universities institution in the Rocky Mountain Region, has four Nobel Laureates, many MacArthur, Fulbright and Packard Fellows, dozens of members of National Academies, and world-renowned joint research institutes with national labs/agencies such as NIST, NOAA, NCAR and NASA. The university is also home to numerous research centers and faculty research groups in chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, business, social sciences, journalism and law that are directly involved in work on renewable and sustainable energy issues.

The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) was launched as a campus initiative in early 2006 to become an international force in solving the energy challenge through research, education and technology commercialization. Based on extensive faculty input, CU determined that a successful initiative must be highly interdisciplinary, integrating the University’s extensive research in renewable and sustainable energy with its strengths in climate and environmental science, behavioral studies, policy analysis, and entrepreneurship. RASEI reflects this integration with a three-pronged approach that emphasized discovery, transformation, and entrepreneurship.

In June 2009 the final objective of the initiative was achieved when the University of Colorado Regents formally approved the creation of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, and an agreement was signed with long time partner the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to make RASEI a joint institute.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, comprised of the Midwest Research Institute, Battelle Memorial Institute, CU-Boulder, CSU, Colorado School of Mines, MIT and Stanford.  For more information visit http://www.nrel.gov.

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