HP Labs is asking academic and research institutions for research proposals that focus on cloud computing, sustainable IT, transferring data seamlessly across a variety of media, dealing with the information explosion and dynamic computing. The computer company will offer $50,000 or $75,000 for selected proposals — primarily to pay a graduate student to help. While it’s nice to get a graduate student, an academic who really finds compelling solutions to these infrastructure problems might be able to get more money out of a VC searching for the next hot startup.