HP Labs issued a call for research proposals from the academic community today so I took the opportunity to chat with Rich Friedrich, who directs our Open Innovation Office in charge of strategic university, business and government collaborations.

The Open Innovation Office is new for HP Labs, but collaboration is not. The idea is to better focus joint research projects to have a bigger impact both inside HP and in the scientific community overall.

"I want to use this office to partner with some of the brightest minds in the world," Rich says.

He also hopes to change the way HP and its partners collaborate and to explore using Web 2.0 social networking tools to pursue and support research.

'I'm interested in what a Research 2.0 world looks like," Rich told me.

"How do we build a research community that combines the deep technical expertise of university professors, the deep domain knowledge of industry and the financial resources of government to solve the pressing problems of today and set the agenda for tomorrow?

And how do you do it in a way that you harness collective wisdom and create a really vibrant community?"

Interesting questions – and tough challenges facing HP Labs and the research community overall.

As for the request for proposals, the list of the project areas includes:

Awards will generally range from $50,000 to $75,000 USD. The deadline to submit proposals is June 18, 2008.