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Announcing the first Call for Proposals and the proposal form for the newly established Chevron – MIT University Partnership Program (UPP) within the MIT Energy Initiative. Chevron has joined MITEI as a sustaining member; this program is intended to establish long-term, close educational, training, and research links between MIT and Chevron in areas of mutual interest, related to oil and gas production. In particular, the research focus is in the area of remote, ultra-deepwater development and production, i.e. making possible the autonomous development and production of oil and gas from ultra-deep remote sites. An essential component of the research program is the active collaboration between MIT Principal Investigators and Chevron Research Specialists (Chevron “Champions”) in order to guide the research effort towards the focus area, and take advantage of the advanced technology of Chevron. Realizing that it takes time to identify for each proposed topic Chevron Champions and build the necessary collaboration links, we can support highly promising research ideas and topics at the level of a seed project. A seed project allows both the development of the main project ideas to address the grand challenge of remote, ultra-deepwater development and production, as well as establish close links between MIT and Chevron researchers. The level of support of a seed project is from $45-80K with an expected duration of one year; successfully developed seed projects can move on to become full research projects. Some of you have already established links with Chevron during the past year, as the research program was being formulated, in which case you can propose a regular research project at the level of $130-180K per year, for a period of two to three years. In either case, whether you apply for a regular research program or a seed project, please fill the attached short proposal form and submit it to me via email (mistetri@mit.edu) no later than November 8, 2007. The UPP Decision Review Board will meet on December 6, 2007 to take final decisions, which will be communicated to you by December 10, 2007. New projects will start on January 1, 2008. It is expected that three regular research projects and three seed projects will be announced. Highly innovative ideas within the main theme of remote, ultra-deepwater development and production are highly encouraged even if no link has been established with Chevron staff. The Center for Ocean Engineering and the MIT Energy Initiative will provide all the needed support to make such links possible. Please note also that a new related federal initiative, RPSEA (Research Program for Sustainable Energy for America) is soliciting ideas for deepwater oil and gas systems. Under special agreement, and if you so specify, your idea may also be considered for funding by RPSEA. More information about RPSEA can be found at http://rpsea.org/. Michael Triantafyllou
MIT UPP Program Coordinator
Project Description PDF Proposal Form PDF Chevron Matlab test file |
