"It's historic that there was a competition for a cognitive technology grant, and it's historic that the University of Colorado won the first grant." -Elizabeth Hoffman, President, University of Colorado

The Univerisity of Colorado has been awarded the nation's first Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). CU-Denver and Health Sciences Center faculty member and principal investigator Cathy Bodine has been awarded a $4.25 million grant from NIDRR, with the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disability contributing $1.25 million and Imagine! giving an additional $90 thousand toward the RERC. With funding provided by this historic grant award, the University of Colorado system, through its Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Health Sciences Center and the College of Engineering at the Boulder campus, will develop and operate this center to reduce barriers to independent living and the workforce for persons with significant cognitive impairments.

The RERC has been designed to produce outcomes that will directly impact the quality of life of persons with cognitive disabilities and their families through leveraging of financial and personnel resources, partnerships, and projects focused on existing, new and emerging cognitive technologies. Numerous partners from academic, community and industry sectors will collaborate to explore, develop, and disseminate innovative cognitive technologies. Partners include the University of Colorado at Boulder and Health Sciences Center, the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disability, the University of Kansas, Michigan, Pittsburgh, and Illinois at Chicago, Imagine!, Ablelink, Ablenet, BEA Systems, and many others. See the link below for an organizational chart showing the partners involved in this RERC:

Click here to see the RERC organizational chart.

Click here to see the RERC project summary.