The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global will launch the second round of Global-X, a nine-month international science challenge worth up to $500,000, to encourage ground-breaking research from all around the world.
The decision comes after a successful 2020 inaugural Global-X Challenge that selected four winning teams with members from Australia, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US. These teams are now preparing for innovative concept demonstrations later this year.
“The purpose of the Global-X Challenge is to discover, disrupt, and ultimately provide a catalyst through basic and applied research for later development and delivery of revolutionary capabilities to the US Navy and Marine Corps, the commercial marketplace, and the public,” ORN Global said in a statement.
ONR Global is interested in receiving white papers and proposals on the following challenge topics: Alternate Navigation at High Latitude; High Latitude High Bandwidth Communications; Persistent Polar Perception.
Researchers from academia and industry may participate, and it is expected, but not required, that multi-national teams will consist of at least two research entities outside of the US, whether from academia, industry and/or the broad research community.
“We expect a new round of revolutionary ideas from the brightest international researchers,” ONR Global Executive Officer Captain Matt Farr said. “Alongside an evaluation panel of experts from participant nations of the International Cooperative Engagement Program for Polar Research (ICE-PPR), we are interested in finding promising concepts that achieve innovative capability advances with both military and commercial value, specifically focused in polar science.”
The Global-X Challenge will officially launch during a kick-off webinar set for April 29 at 7am EDT.