Awards under the HP Labs Innovation Research Program will consist of cash support for one year in the USD $50,000 to $75,000 range, including any overhead. A key element of each award will be on-campus support for one graduate-student researcher. Larger or partial awards may be made, and awards may be renewed up to a total of three years, based on research outcomes and HP business needs. Proposed projects may begin on a date appropriate to the institution’s academic year.

Participants must provide their institution’s written acceptance of programme terms and conditions as part of the proposal submission process.

The 2008 HP Labs Innovation Research program is seeking proposals for breakthrough research within five broad research themes:

• Information explosion: Acquiring, analyzing and delivering the right information to individuals and businesses so they can act on it
• Dynamic cloud services: Developing web platforms and cloud services that are dynamically personalized based on your location, preferences, calendar and communities
• Content transformation: Enabling the fluid transformation of content from analog to digital, from device to device, and from digital content to physical products
• Intelligent infrastructure: Designing smarter, more secure computing devices, networks and architectures that work together to connect individuals and businesses to rich, dynamic content and services
• Sustainability: Creating technologies, IT infrastructure, and new business models for the low-carbon economy that save money and leave a lighter footprint on the world.

Proposals will be solicited in line with these topics on a geographic basis. Universities are invited to address specific research topics as assigned to a number of regional groupings, based on HP Labs worldwide locations. There are seven regional aligments:
Americas - Region 1,
EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) - Region 2,
Russia - Region 3,
Asia - Region 4,
China - Region 5,
India - Region 6,
Israel - Region 7.

The Innovation Research Program seeks proposals that leverage additional external resources. Our interest is in collaborations with researchers who have a track record of conducting successful research with external funding. HP will evaluate proposals against five primary criteria:

• How well the proposed research addresses the topic outlined in the call for proposals
• The impact, innovativeness and ambition of the research
• The research record and standing of the principal investigator in relevant fields
• The strength of the plan to conduct the research
• The amount of additional external funds or resources the proposal will attract

Proposals must be submitted online, in English, via the HP Labs web-based proposal-submission system at www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp

Further information on topics, proposal requirements, and collaborative research agreement, template of the acceptance letter, etc. are availaible on:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp/2008_HPL_Innovation_Research_Program_RFP.pdf, http://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp/topics.html, http://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp/HPL_Innov_Research_Program_CRA.pdf,
http://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp/HPLabs_IRP_Acceptance_Letter_template.doc

The information was provided by Leonardo Piccinetti.