HP Labs looking for a few good university researchers
Following its massive overhaul earlier this year, HP Labs will begin a more formal and focused program doing collaborative research with universities.
Beginning Wednesday, the research and development arm of Hewlett-Packard will begin accepting proposals from university researchers anywhere in the world.
Proposals will be accepted until mid-June, then judged and awarded in the fall. The winners will receive a grant ranging from $50,000 to $75,000, which is enough for each professor who wins to hire at least one graduate student, according to HP's Office of Open Innovation.
"In the past, we did a lot of collaboration with universities, but it didn't have the same kind of sharp focus," said Rich Friedrich, director of HP's Open Innovation Office.
The new focus at HP Labs, announced in March, is aligned around a smaller number of subset "labs" and five main areas of research, including information management, cloud computing, transforming analog content to digital, intelligent infrastructures, and sustainability.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. 
In case folks are interested, I posted in my blog today more details on the call for proposals, plus an interview with Rich Friedrich, who is directing the Open Innovation Office.
http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs/labsblog/archive/2008/05/07/6327.html
Jamie Beckett