CSU Innovate: Promoting Innovation Across 23 California University Campuses

The California State University (CSU) is the largest system of primarily masters' level universities in the USA, serving nearly half a million students every year. In 2017, the CIO for the CSU Chancellor's Office started CSU... [ view full abstract ]

The California State University (CSU) is the largest system of primarily masters' level universities in the USA, serving nearly half a million students every year. In 2017, the CIO for the CSU Chancellor's Office started CSU Innovate, an attempt to promote and support technology innovation across the CSU campuses. A "Chief Innovation Officer" position was established to launch this initiative, and a campus CIO was tapped to spend 50% of his time to support it.

The first year of CSU Innovate included:

• establishing key focus areas
• launching a campus mini-grants program
• coordinating an in-person Immersive Learning summit
• offering a full-day online event to provide in-depth information on cloud computing
• initiating a pilot program to streamline software purchasing
• and developing and promoting a new strategy for future development of the CSU's shared ERP system.

Based upon the success of the first year, plans are underway to expand and institutionalize the role of the Chief Innovation Officer and to provide additional resources to support this work.

The CSU's founding Chief Innovation Officer will tell the story of the first year, reflect on successes, failures, and lessons learned, and outline future plans. While the specific conditions for this initiative may be unique to CSU, the results from this experience have potential relevance to innovation strategies that might be pursued among any consortium of Canadian institutions or at a single large and decentralized university.