Office of Naval Research starts USD 750K challenge

The US Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global has launched Global-X, a nine-month international science challenge worth up to $750,000 USD to encourage groundbreaking research from all around the world.

ONR coordinates, executes and promotes the science and technology programs of the US Navy and Marine Corps.

As informed, ONR Global will competitively select and fund revolutionary international research projects in three challenge areas not addressed by the current basic research portfolio of ONR Global.

Global-X will, therefore, stimulate new, high-risk multidisciplinary research ideas that have both military and commercial value with the expectation of solving present and future US Navy and Marine Corps technology needs.

ONR is interested in receiving white papers and proposals on the following challenge topics — Tailored Material and Manufacturing; Multifunctional Maritime Films for Persistent and Survivable Platforms and Warfighters;  Object Detection and Identification in any Medium (Air, Water, Sand/Earth).

Researchers from academia and industry of all disciplines and countries are invited to form multi-national teams to address any challenge area.

“The objective of Global-X is to accelerate revolutionary research, bridging the gap between the science community’s academic work and warfighter needs,” Capt. Matt Farr, Executive Officer for ONR Global, said.

“Implementing a multi-national team challenge will enable ONR Global to engage the world’s best researchers to create and demonstrate a new capability that has never been done before. This will undoubtedly benefit all team members.”

“I’m excited about our Global-X Challenge and its tremendous potential for sparking new ideas and collaborating in a way that has never been done before…We are confident that we will receive ambitious yet attainable cutting-edge ideas to potentially transfer to our fleet and the commercial market,” Rhett Jefferies, ONR Global Technical Director, commented.

Global-X was officially launched during a kick-off webinar on April 23.