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Collaborative Institutes
Academia plays a critical role in the global economy—pushing forward the
boundaries of knowledge, driving innovation, and educating the next generation
of scientists and technologists. To realize the potential of a thriving academic
environment, a strong partnership across academia, government, and industry is
required. Microsoft is committed to building exactly that kind of partnership
and continues to invest in innovative research worldwide.
Through
a variety of global and regional programs, Microsoft Research collaborates with
universities, industry, and governments around the world to support basic
academic research to advance the state-of-the-art in computing and computational
sciences. To respond to the diverse needs and interests of academic communities
across the world and to align with Microsoft Research labs in Redmond, Cambridge
(U.K.), Beijing and Bangalore, our outreach is based on a regional approach
which enables our programs to focus both on concerns of regional significance
and on those shared internationally.
One way
we achieve this is through the creation of our worldwide research institutes.
From the use of robotics in the classroom to computational thinking, each
institute is focused on advancing a particular area of basic academic research
to help solve some of toughest challenges in computing. We invite you to explore
these collaborative centers.
Universal Parallel Computing Research Center, University of California
Berkeley, California
The Universal Parallel Computing Research Center (UPCRC) at the University of California,
Berkeley (UC Berkeley), is a joint research undertaking between Microsoft and Intel aimed
at accelerating developments in mainstream parallel computing, for consumers and businesses
in desktop and mobile computing. It is one of two such centers launched in March 2008 and
is located inside Soda Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. This center is led by David
Patterson, UC Berkeley professor of computer science. The UPCRC at UC Berkeley will
work in conjunction
with eight principal investigators and six co-principal investigators from the UC faculty. The
center is expected to support approximately 50 Ph.D. students and post-docs. Research at
this center may lead to specific projects in the areas of personal health, auditory
systems, photo searching, speech recognition and others.
Universal Parallel Computing Research Center, University of Illinois
Champaign, Illinois
The Universal Parallel Computing Research Center (UPCRC) at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a joint research undertaking between Microsoft and Intel
aimed at accelerating developments in mainstream parallel computing for consumers and
businesses in desktop and mobile computing. It is one of two such centers launched in
March 2008 and is co-directed by Marc Snir professor of computer science, and Wen-mei Hwu,
professor of electrical and computer engineering. This center will leverage UIUC’s
broad-based faculty, who have expertise across the entire problem chain facing parallel
computing. The faculty has demonstrated excellence in the most critical areas of
parallel computing (e.g.,
architecture and compiler support) and the ability to take a unique multi-disciplinary
approach. The combination of Illinois’ faculty accomplishments in these areas with
Illinois’ history of innovation in parallel computing made Illinois an ideal partner
for this research undertaking.
BSC-Microsoft Research Centre
Barcelona, Spain
The BSC-Microsoft Research Centre is a research venture jointly created by
Microsoft Research Cambridge and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre. Established
in January 2008, the center will focus on the way microprocessors and software for
the mobile and desktop market segments will be designed and interact over the next
10 years and beyond. The vision of the centre is of a top-down computer architecture
in which software requirements drive the hardware innovation forward rather than
letting the hardware design drive software development. Initial projects conducted
at the centre will include fundamental and applied research in transactional memories,
writing of parallel programs for multi-core processors, and hardware support for
managed runtimes. Partnerships like this assist Microsoft Research in supporting the
global research community and ultimately assisting researchers and scientists to address
some of the toughest, most urgent societal and technological challenges worldwide.
Center
for Collaborative Technologies, University of Washington
Seattle,
Washington
Established in July 2007, the Center for Collaborative Technologies will focus
on advancing the collaboration technology for the ConferenceXP platform with the
goal of establishing it as a widely-used collaborative tool for distance
learning and research support. The ConferenceXP project began in 2002 and
provides infrastructure to supports three primary scenarios: real-time research
collaboration, wireless-enabled classrooms, and highly interactive distributed
learning environments. The project enables researchers and developers to develop
collaborative tools and applications without having to build them from scratch.
The Center will be jointly managed by UW and Microsoft Research to develop the
next versions of ConferenceXP. The Center is the 11th collaborative institute
launched by Microsoft Research.
Microsoft Intelligent Information Processing Laboratory, Xi’an Jiao
Tong University
Xi’an, China
Created
in June 2007, the Microsoft Intelligent Information Processing
Laboratory was the 10th joint initiative between Microsoft Research Asia and
Universities in China. Their objectives are to do the fundamental research in
the areas of intelligent computing, software systems, and network information
processing. Some of the projects being explored include: Data Mining Principles
and Methods based on Perceptual and Cognitive Understanding, Machine Learning
Theory and Algorithm under the Framework of Lipschitz Space, and other
initiatives.
Latin American Collaborative Research Federation at the Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile and Universidad de Chile
Santiago,
Chile
Established in May 2007, this Research Federation is designed to stimulate Latin
American academic collaborative research in Information and Communication
Technologies as an enabler of economic and social development. The Research
Federation will be housed at the Catholic University of Chile in
association with University of Chile. Microsoft Research will provide
universities in the region with a collaborative environment to promote
cross-country research and education solutions. A Joint Steering
Committee will provide the governance for the Federation.
Microsoft Research–FAPESP Institute for IT Research
São Paulo,
Brazil
Created
in April 2007, the objective of FAPESP (Foundation for the Support of Research
in the São Paulo State) is to establish a network of researchers able to create
new expertise to help expand IT capabilities and, therefore, meet the social and
economic challenges of rural and urban underprivileged communities in Brazil.
Microsoft Carnegie Mellon Center for Computational Thinking, Carnegie Mellon
University
Pittsburgh, PA
Microsoft Corp. and Carnegie Mellon University collaborated to create the
Microsoft Carnegie Mellon Center for Computational Thinking in March, 2007. It
represents a long-term partnership between Microsoft Research and Carnegie
Mellon’s Computer Science Department and will support research in emerging areas
of computer science, particularly those that can influence the thinking of other
disciplines.
The Microsoft–Queensland University of Technology Centre for eResearch
Brisbane, Australia
The
Centre was created in October 2006 to explore the following research areas:
Urban Planning, Water Management and Climate Change, with the Microsoft
component focused on the development of computing tools and techniques to enable
and accelerate scientific research. The Centre will start by examining three
areas of research closely: bioinformatics tool development, sensor networks, and
parallelism. The Centre will continue to evolve and adjust to other research
requests as they present themselves.
Microsoft Digital Cartoon and Animation Laboratory, Beijing Film Academy
Beijing,
China
Founded
in October 2006, the laboratory is jointly managed by Microsoft Research Asia
and the Beijing Film Academy. Research areas include digital cartooning and
animation, gaming and graphics. The lab has conducted groundbreaking research in
those fields, especially in the animation of Chinese traditional art. The
cartoon movie “Huan Xiao Man Wu” , produced with the participation of the lab
was named as one of the Best Cartoon Movie Nominees at the China Huabiao
cinematic ceremonies in Beijing in 2007. The lab helps transfer Microsoft
technologies in Graphics and Computer Vision into Digital Entertainment
Products.
The
Institute for Personal Robots in Education at Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA
The
Institute for Personal Robots in Education at Georgia Tech focuses on using
easy-to-use robotics technology to revitalize the undergraduate computer science
curriculum, specifically the introductory courses — where the greatest rate of
attrition occurs. Created in July 2006, Microsoft is providing funding to help
develop and evaluate robotics technology that will bring measurable gains in
Computer Science enrollment & retention. Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr are matching
the funds from Microsoft. The curriculum developed will continue to evolve and
develop and eventually adopted by other universities with computer science
programs.
The Microsoft Center for Research on Pen-Centric Computing, Brown University
Providence, RI
The
Microsoft Center for Research on Pen-Centric Computing at Brown was established
in March 2006 to examine and facilitate research focused on improving pen-based
operation of Tablet PCs, Pocket PCs, Palm Pilot personal digital assistants,
electronic whiteboards and conventional desktop computers. The Center is the
first academic research program in the nation dedicated to pen-centric computing
innovation. Through the three-year joint research and education alliance,
Microsoft Research and Brown University will explore and develop new ways to use
pen-like styluses to operate computing devices.
The
French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control
Orsay, France
This
joint Research Centre was opened in January 2006 in Orsay, France. The focus of
the Centre is long-term research into formal methods, software security and IT
methods and tools designed for science. Under the management of the INRIA
Research Director, Jean-Jacques Lévy, the Centre is controlled by a management
committee made up of equal numbers of representatives from INRIA and Microsoft.
Microsoft Intelligent Computing and System Laboratory, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University
Shanghai, China
Founded
in September 2005, the Microsoft Intelligent Computing and System Laboratory has
the mission of exploring ways to make breakthroughs in traditional digital
computing within the area of intelligent information processing. Areas of
research are computing of artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence
search. Projects explored include: Theories and Models on Brain-like Computing,
Theories and Methods on Computer Vision based on Human visual information
processing, Brain - Computer Interface Technology, and more. Through the joint
lab, several researchers at Microsoft Research Asia have been invited to become
adjunct professors at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and are co-supervising PhD
students at the university.
The Microsoft Institute of Japanese Academia Research and Collaboration
Tokyo, Japan
Microsoft Institute for Japanese Academic Research Collaboration (IJARC) was
established in July 2005 as a platform for academia collaboration between
Microsoft and Japanese academia. As a main interface, Microsoft Research Asia
works with faculty and students to bring opportunities and connections with not
only the MSR lab in Beijing but also in Redmond, Cambridge, and other
locations. To help Microsoft better understands the needs of Japanese academia
and identifies opportunities and priorities, IJARC has an Academic Advisory
Committee (AAC) which has one director and
six
advisors. Currently, these members are from University of Tokyo, University of
Kyoto, University of Osaka, Keio University, Waseda University, and Tokyo
Institute of Technology. IJARC provides various programs each year, for
example, CORE (Collaborative Research) projects which sent our
Requests for Proposals (RFP), symposiums and workshops sometimes jointly held
with MSRA and/or international and regional academic conferences. The topics
for RFPs in 2007 are computer vision and graphics, speech and natural language
processing, search and mining technology, robotics, and data centric computing
used in energy, environment, biomedical engineering or other new frontiers of
research.
Microsoft Human-Centric Computation and Interface Technologies
Laboratory, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, China
Established in May 2005 , the Human-Centric Computation and Interface
Technologies Laboratory has research areas including: visual computing, wireless
and network communication, speech processing and multi-model interaction as well
as multi-media signal processing and retrieval. Microsoft Research Asia
collaborated with the Chinese University of Hong Kong to work on these areas and
try to make the computer “see” users, “understand” what users say, and
“perceive” user intentions and actions. Lab members have published many
significant papers, including some at SIGGRAPH, WWW, CVPR, ICCV, HLT, IEEE
Trans. on PAMI, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, among others. Lab members have
won “Best Paper” awards at IEEE NOMS 2006 and IFIP Performance 2005.
Microsoft Statistics and Information Technology Laboratory,
Peking University
Beijing, China
In
April 2005, Microsoft Research Asia collaborated with Peking University to set
up a joint laboratory for solving problems in information technology by using
statistics, mathematics, and computing technologies. In addition to fostering a
new generation of talent with skills and knowledge in statistics and information
technology the project aims to integrate advanced statistical methods with other
disciplines. The lab will also collaborate with the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in the United States to do remote sensing and detection of the
Beijing atmosphere. In addition to doing research, the lab also organizes an
annual summer school to cultivate talent in statistics and information
technologies. More than 100 faculty members and students have benefited from the
summer school.
The Microsoft Research-University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems
Biology
Trento, Italy
The
Microsoft Research-University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems
Biology was established on February 2, 2005 in the Trento Province. The Centre
combines traditional research in medicine, biology, genetics and Information
Technology to aid to Italy’s development, attract foreign investments and
revitalize the country’s competitiveness. The unique use of computational
research in non-traditional fields has become an important resource for
researchers around the world.
The
Microsoft Center for Interaction Design and Visualization at the University of
Maryland
College Park, MD
The
Center was created in November 2003 to explore the ways humans interact with
computers. The idea was to focus on the design, implementation and evaluation of
new interface technologies that are potentially useful and appealing to a wide
range of people. Some of the projects explored include: DataLens. Other projects
include: Piccolo, Launch Tile & Applens, Routelens, CrossY, One-handed interface
design for mobile devices, Paper based interface and advanced pen-computing.
China Ministry of Education-Microsoft Key Laboratory of
Multimedia Computing and Communication,
University of Science and Technology of China
Hefei,
China
Founded
in September 2003, this lab was created for research in signal processing and
speech recognition, content-based retrieval as well as wireless video
communication. Lab members have published significant papers in IEEE Trans. on
Image Processing, IEEE Trans. on Circuit and System, ICIP, ICME each year. Eight
technologies generated by the lab have been accepted by Joint Video Team in
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG/JVT). Through the platform, young professors
have the opportunity to work at Microsoft Research Asia as visiting researchers.
The lab was upgraded to become a China Ministry of Education Key Lab in 2004
China Ministry of Education-Microsoft Key Laboratory of
Information Technology, Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology
Hong
Kong, China
Created
in September 2000, the Key Laboratory of Information Technology has the
objective of doing high-quality research by integrating the strengths of both
Microsoft Research Asia and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in
the area of computer networks, multimedia, database, and artificial
intelligence. In the past several years, the lab has published papers in some of
the international conferences, including ICCV, CVPR, ECCV, SIGGRAPH, ICML and
journals such as PAMI and TNN. Some lab members have also won “Best
Paper” awards at the QShine 2006 conference. The lab was upgraded to become a
China Ministry of Education Key Lab in 2004
China Ministry of Education-Microsoft Key Laboratory of
Natural Language Processing and Speech, Harbin Institute of Technology
Harbin,
China
This
laboratory was established in June 2000, for research in the areas of machine
translation, information retrieval, speech recognition and processing, natural
language understanding, among others. In July 2006, the Shenzhen extension of
the lab was launched. More than 200 staff and students have undertaken research
projects, including some sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China, and the National 863 program of China. Since 2005, the lab has also been
organizing a summer camp in Harbin Institute of Technology, and about 150
faculty members and students from universities in China have participated. In
2004, the lab was upgraded to become a China Ministry of Education Key Lab in
2004
China Ministry of Education-Microsoft Key Laboratory of Media
and Networking Technology, Tsinghua University
Beijing,
China
The lab
was created in January 2000 and completes research projects in the area of
computer networks, multimedia, database, and information retrieval. Lab members
have published many significant papers in international journals and conferences
including IEEE Transaction on Multimedia, SIGIR, SIGKDD, and ACM MM. The lab
also plays a very important role in academic exchanges. In August 2007, it
successfully co-organized the 1st Microsoft Research Asia-Tsinghua University
Workshop on Internet Services. Prior to that, the lab also co-organized the NICT
China-Japan Forum in Beijing in 2005 and 2006. In 2004, the lab was upgraded to
become a China Ministry of Education Key Lab.
China Ministry of Education-Microsoft Key Laboratory of Visual
Perception, Zhe Jiang University
Hangzhou,
China
Established in November 1999, the lab was the first joint lab between Microsoft
Research Asia and universities in China. Its research areas include video object
motion tracking and recognition, efficient modeling and photorealistic
rendering. Researchers have undertaken projects including ones funded by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China and have published papers in ACM
Multimedia, SIGGRAPH, CVPR, ICIP, Computer Vision and Image Understanding,
International Journal of Computer Vision, International Journal of Visualization
and Computer Vision, Journal of Software, among others. The lab was upgraded to
become a China Ministry of Education Key Lab in 2004.
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