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Please see the full solicitation for complete information about the funding opportunity. Below is a summary assembled by the Research & Innovation Office (RIO).

Program Summary

Recordings at Risk is a regranting program administered by CLIR to support the preservation of rare and unique audio, audiovisual, and other time-based media of high scholarly value through digital reformatting.

Awards range from $10,000 to $60,000 and cover costs of preservation reformatting for fragile and/or obsolete time-based media content by qualified external service providers. Eligible media may include but are not necessarily limited to magnetic audio and video tape, grooved discs, wax cylinders, wire recordings, and film (with or without sound).

Recordings at Risk encourages professionals who may be constrained by limited resources and/or technical expertise to take action against the threats of degradation and obsolescence. The program aims to help organizations identify priorities and develop practical strategies for digital reformatting, build relationships with partners, and raise awareness of best practices.

Deadlines

• CU Internal Deadline: 11:59pm MT December 4, 2025
• Sponsor Application Deadline: February 24, 2026

Internal Application Requirements (all in PDF format)

• Project Summary (3 pages maximum): Please include: 1)ÌýProject Summary: 150-word overview including materials, activities, and significance. 2) Content Description and Condition: Detail creator, acquisition, organization, catalogs/finding aids, current public accessibility, geographic scope of content, and date range of creation. Describe housing, condition evaluation (who/when), and environmental controls. 3)ÌýPublic Impact: Describe the impact of the proposed project, emphasizing anything that makes the materials special and important. 4) Risk Assessment: Explain the urgency of the proposed project in terms of the risk of loss of information recorded on the audio or audiovisual carrier. 5) Rights Summary: Summarize known rights, embargoes, and ethical or legal considerations pertinent to the nominated recordings and describe how this information will be communicated to future users. 6) Project Design: Describe the technical approach to be used for the digitization, metadata creation, ingest, and digital preservation activities to be undertaken during the project term.
• Lead PI Curriculum Vitae
• Budget Overview (1 page maximum): A basic budget outlining project costs is sufficient; detailed OCG budgets are not required.

To access the online application, visit:

Eligibility

The same Principal Investigator may not be nominated to lead two concurrent or overlapping CLIR projects within the same program.

Limited Submission Guidelines

Only one application is allowed per cycle.

Award Information

• Award Amount: $10K - $60K
• Period of Performance: 12 months

Review Criteria

An independent review panel, comprised of experts in a variety of domains and technologists with expertise in digitization and digital preservation, will evaluate applications using four primary criteria:

• Impact: The potential public impact of the project
• Urgency: The urgency of undertaking reformatting to avoid risk of loss
• Potential for preservation: The viability of the work plan and deliverables for preserving the content over time
• Approach to access: The approach to legal and ethical concerns affecting access