Creating Research Enterprises Adapted for the Teaching Environment (CREATE) is a cohort of four teaching-focused institutions that serve undergraduate and/or non-traditional students. Like many emerging research institutions (ERIs), CREATE cohort members have faced common challenges to interacting with regional innovation systems that include a lack of coordination among the offices on each campus that facilitate external partnerships, poor understanding among potential partners of the institutions’ capabilities, and a lack of institutional policies and procedures around issues related to use-inspired research. In this project, the CREATE cohort will work collaboratively to address these issues, helping each institution build and sustain capacity to engage with its regional innovation ecosystem. The proposed effort will pursue the following goals: identifying each CREATE cohort institution’s place in its regional innovation ecosystem by assessing its current positions, better understanding its potential for growth, and adapting best practices from peer and regional institutions; developing a strategy to effectively engage a broad network of external partners by creating a clear entry point or “front door” and defining pathways to help launch, sustain, and coordinate external relationships. This project will also build institutional structure and culture to support use-inspired research and tech-transfer initiatives by mitigating barriers, creating support structures, and strengthening policies and procedures for faculty members to incorporate industry partnerships into their research, teaching, and mentorship of students. The CREATE cohort will also disseminate its findings through national networks to share policies, procedures, and best practices that are right-sized for teaching institutions, extending the impact of the project. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.