A cohort of five primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) from across the country has aligned efforts to enhance their capacity to develop applied research partnerships with local innovation ecosystem partners, including industry, government, and other educational institutions. The ARISE cohort has established plans to enhance each institution’s ability to prepare for, and successfully execute applied research partnerships to strengthen each institution’s role in regional innovation and economic development. Additionally, the cohort will create an internal assessment tool that will allow each university to assess and improve its capacity to execute these university-industry partnerships that will advance each member’s engagement in its regional innovation ecosystem. Collectively, the ARISE cohort will showcase best practices for PUIs to catalyze workforce development and industry research and development (R&D) projects supported by each institution’s faculty and administration to match university research expertise with regional R&D demands, now and in the future. ARISE member institutions share the common goal of increasing their capacity to support R&D activities in partnership with regional industries. With improved institutional capacity, each institution will be able to leverage their assets to engage with regional industry and governmental partners at the speed of business to support workforce and economic development. Cohort members will support one another throu