We recommended that you contact IBM technical employees you already know through your professional organizations and activities. Many IBM technical personnel belong to professional societies, attend technical meetings or publish articles in technical journals. In most cases, such a relationship provides a good basis for developing a common interest and research collaboration. If your IBM contact is not familiar with the program, he or she can access this information on the IBM intranet.

SUR awards are not for projects related to specific pieces of work. These are for projects at universities in which IBM shares common technical interests. IBM's hope is that these awards encourage people to work together and openly share information, so that there is a benefit to the entire technical community in an area of interest to IBM.

The IBM Marketing and Sales teams know the IBM equipment and interact with others on campus. As a result, they generally become involved in these projects to help configure and order equipment needed for the SUR projects.