Paradigm announced today the introduction of the Paradigm Academic Software Program, which will provide institutions of higher learning with access to Paradigm state-of-the-art E&P software. The program includes innovative applications in seismic processing and imaging, interpretation and modeling, reservoir characterization, reservoir engineering, and well planning and drilling engineering.

"At the Centre for Petroleum Studies at Imperial College London, we aim at preparing students to be fully operational when they start working in industry," said Alain C. Gringarten, Director of the Centre for Petroleum Studies, Imperial College and one of the many institutions benefiting from the Program. "Practicing with software products used by oil and gas companies is part of our curriculum, and we are very grateful to Paradigm for providing us with valuable access to its interpretation and reservoir engineering suites."

The Paradigm Academic Software Program provides academic access to key industry software products such as Paradigm VoxelGeo, Stratimagic, SeisEarth, GOCAD, SKUA, Geolog and Sysdrill. In continued dedication to university research programs, Paradigm will also provide participating universities with free access to application software development kits. Qualified universities may apply for the Paradigm University Grant Program which provides access for classroom and/or research-based use.

"Paradigm software products are critical to our research and teaching activities in energy and geoscience," said John H. Shaw, Chair, Dept. of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Harvard. "We use their structural modeling capabilities extensively, as a means of integrating various data types and developing new methods of petroleum trap and reservoir characterization."

Paradigm continues to expand collaboration with university professionals. Through the Academic Software Program, the software package for university members of the GOCAD Consortium will include the possibility to license Paradigm SKUA 3D modeling software.

"We are very enthusiastic to see SKUA becoming widely available to universities, for both teaching and research purposes," said Guillaume Caumon, Director of the GOCAD Research Consortium. "The availability of Paradigm's state-of-the art geosciences software and corresponding developer kits to universities is clearly a win-win situation, and will help bridge the gap between academic research and practical industrial applications."

"Academic institutions play a critical role in the development of our industry," said Jean-Claude Dulac, Paradigm executive vice president, Science & Technology. "Given that educators are responsible for training future industry leaders and innovators, we believe that by investing in education today we are actively helping to overcome the challenges of tomorrow."

For more information on Paradigm products and services, visit www.pdgm.com, or e-mail info@pdgm.com.