HP today announced it has selected professors from around the world to receive awards as part of its second annual HP Labs Innovation Research Program.

Sixty projects from 46 universities in 12 countries will receive awards from HP Labs, the company’s central research arm. The program is designed to create opportunities for colleges, universities and research institutes to conduct breakthrough collaborative research with HP.

Building on the success of last year’s program, HP increased the number of projects it will fund by more than 30 percent – up from 45 projects at 35 institutions worldwide in 2008. Furthermore, given the significant contributions achieved in last year’s program – including 61 published papers and 13 invention disclosures – HP extended a second year of funding to 31 professors in 2009.

The Innovation Research Program is part of HP’s open innovation strategy, which pursues research collaborations with top researchers and entrepreneurs in academia, the government and businesses worldwide to discover and nurture new opportunities and advance thinking that will improve business and life. Each of the projects is aligned with HP Labs’ focus on eight high-impact research themes that address the most complex challenges facing HP’s customers and the industry.

“Good ideas can strike anywhere and at any time. HP has recognized this and developed a unique program that is truly open, competitive and global,” said Kang Shin, professor and award winner, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “This groundbreaking initiative enhances the teaching and learning experience at universities, and establishes HP as a valuable technology partner for higher education.”

Awardees will work with HP Labs researchers on fundamental research in areas such as intelligent infrastructure, immersive interaction and cloud computing, which includes social computing. A full list of awards and descriptions of select projects is available athttp://www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/irp/2009_results.html.

“The Innovation Research Program is a core pillar of HP’s advanced research strategy. It allows the company to tap the brightest minds all over the world to tackle the most challenging issues facing the technical community,” said Prith Banerjee, senior vice president, Research, HP, and director, HP Labs. “Fostering this type of collaboration between industry and academia breeds a long-term partnership that is more important now than ever before.”

HP Labs Innovation Research Awards provide project funding of up to $100,000 for one year to each academic institution and are renewable for a total of three years based on research progress and HP business requirements. The next request for proposals is planned for spring 2010.

2009 HP Labs Innovation Research Program Award winners by region:

Americas

• Arizona State University, Dr. K. Selcuk Candan – USA
• Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Greg Ganger and Dr. Noah Smith – USA (two awards)
• Emory University, Dr. Eugene Agichtein (joint project with Georgia Institute of Technology) – USA
• Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Biing Hwang Juang, Dr. Karsten Schwan and Dr. Hongyuan Zha (joint project with Emory University) – USA (three awards)
• New Jersey Institute of Technology, Dr. Leonid Tsybeskov – USA
• North Dakota State University, Dr. Jun Kong (joint project with University of Texas at Dallas) – USA
• Purdue University, Dr. Elias I. Franses – USA
• Stanford University , Dr. Brian A. Wandell – USA
• State University of New York at Buffalo, Dr. Venu Govindaraju – USA (two awards)
• University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy, Dr. Van P. Carey and Dr. Eric Kansa – USA (three awards)
• University of California, Davis, Dr. Kwan-Liu Ma and Dr. John Owens – USA (two awards)
• University of California, San Diego, Dr. Amin Vahdat and Dr. Geoff Voelker – USA (two awards)
• University of California, Santa Barbara, Dr. John Bowers – USA
• University of California, Santa Cruz, Dr. James Davis – USA
• University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Bing Liu – USA
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Narendra Ahuja, Dr. Jiawei Han, Dr. Thomas Huang and Dr. William Sanders (joint project with University of Newcastle) – USA (four awards)
• University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, Dr. Mark Kushner, Dr. Stephane Lafortune, Dr. Trevor Mudge and Dr. Kang Shin – USA (four awards)
• University of Michigan – Dearborn, Dr. Zhiwei Xu – USA
• University of Southern California, Dr. Alan E. Willner – USA
• University of Texas at Dallas, Dr. Kang Zhang (joint project with North Dakota State University) – USA
• University of Toronto, Dr. Ming Hu – Canada
• University of Washington, Dr. Magdalena Balazinska – USA
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Mikko H. Lipasti – USA
• Virginia Tech, Dr. Naren Ramakrishnan – USA
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Elke Rundensteiner – USA
• Wright State University, Dr. Amit Sheth – USA

Asia Pacific

• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Dr. Soumen Chakrabarti – India
• Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Dr. Inkyu Park – Korea
• Peking University, Dr. Xiaoming Li – China
• Tsinghua University, Dr. Jianyong Wang – China
• University of Canterbury, Dr. Mark Billinghurst – New Zealand

Europe, the Middle East and Africa

• Bilkent University, Dr. Alper Sen – Turkey
• Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin, Dr. Johann-Christoph Freytag (joint project with Technische Universitaet Berlin) – Germany
• Imperial College London, Dr. Jason Riley – England
• Konstanz University, Dr. Daniel A. Keim – Germany
• Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Maxim Grinev – Russia
• Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Dr. Ron Y. Pinter – Israel
• Technische Universitaet Berlin, Dr. Volker Markl and Dr. Odej Kao (joint project with Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin) – Germany
• Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Dr. Alfons Kemper – Germany
• Universidade do Minho, Dr. Antonio Luis Pinto Ferreira de Sousa – Portugal
• University of Bristol, Dr. Robert M. Richardson – England
• University of Koblenz-Landau, Maciej Janik – Germany
• University of Leeds, Dr. Ming Ronnier Luo – England
• University of Newcastle, Dr. Aad van Moorsel (joint project with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) – England
• University of Saint-Petersburg, Dr. Boris Novikov – Russia
• University of Surrey, Dr. John Philip Collomosse – England