Point of Contact:
Pamela Houghtaling
Office of Naval Research
Corporate Communications Office
Phone: 703-696-0950
Fax: 703-696-5940
E-mail: onrpao@onr.navy.mil

Arlington, Va. – The Chief of Naval Research (CNR) Rear Admiral William Landay III, USN, has announced the $1 million "CNR Challenge" for innovative science and technology ideas brought to the Office of Naval Research during the 2007 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference, which takes place July 30 through August 2 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. The CNR Challenge gives registered conference attendees the opportunity to schedule face-to-face meetings with ONR decision-makers at the Open Innovation Marketplace to ask specific questions about Naval science and technology or to present new and innovative concepts and technologies.

Marketplace participants must submit an abstract in advance through the ONR web site at http://www.onr.navy.mil/about/conferences/rd_partner/2007/ and click on CNR Challenge: Submit Abstract. The abstracts should line up with one of the 13 new ONR focus areas as outlined in the Naval S&T Strategic Plan:

- Power and Energy
- Operational Environments
- Maritime Domain Awareness
- Asymmetric and Irregular Warfare
- Information, Analysis, and Communication
- Power Projection
- Assure Access and Hold at Risk
- Distributed Operations
- Naval Warfighter Performance and Protection
- Survivability and Self-Defense
- Platform Mobility
- Fleet/Force Sustainment
- Affordability, Maintainability, and Reliability

The entire strategic plan can be downloaded from the ONR web site at http://www.onr.navy.mil.

"The 2006 CNR Challenge was very well received with over 50 submissions" said Landay, "so I have allocated one million of our research dollars to once again support ideas coming to ONR through the Open Innovation Marketplace. If there are any good ideas that meet Navy or Marine Corps needs, we want to move quickly to develop them."

Five projects were selected in 2006. A representative project is the Pegasus self-charging unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) for persistent littoral antisubmarine warfare from Nekton Research LLC. The Pegasus concept is an autonomous self-recharging underwater vehicle with capabilities for persistent wide-area surveillance that can operate against currents and in very shallow and riverine environments. It recharges itself by extracting energy from microbially active sediments on the sea bottom. This enables it to act as a recharging station for other unmanned underwater vehicles or to rise again into the water column to conduct surveillance.

"The CNR Challenge isn´t a contest," said Landay. "It is my commitment as the Chief of Naval Research to encourage any ideas that will provide the Navy and Marine Corps with the operational capabilities we´ll need in the Navy and Marine Corps after next."

The ideas selected under the CNR Challenge will be funded through the existing assistance or acquisition processes, the details of which will be provided to those presenting ideas through the Open Innovation Marketplace at the conference. The $1 million may be spent on one or more of the ideas selected for funding.

Presented by the National Defense Industrial Association with technical support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the 2007 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference will provide key insights into the Navy and Marine Corps drive to enable revolutionary Naval operational concepts that meet the challenges of the 21st century through strategic investment in science and technology. Special emphasis will be placed on power and energy for the fleet and force. Attendees from industry, academia, and government will be informed of the direction, emphasis, and scope of the Department of the Navy´s investment in science and technology and how to conduct business activities with the Naval Research Enterprise.

Registration for the conference itself can be made on the 2007 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference web site at http://www.ndia.org/meetings/7200.

--USN--

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The Office of Naval Research (ONR) manages science and technology research for the Navy and Marine Corps.

ONR sponsors basic and applied research in oceanography, advanced materials, sensors, robotics, biomedical science and technology, electronics, surveillance, mathematics, manufacturing technology, information science, advanced combat systems, and technologies for ships, submarines, aircraft, ground vehicles—and more.

For information about ONR´s programs, go to http://www.onr.navy.mil.