Microsoft Research Cambridge

Overview
January 2008

Microsoft Research Cambridge was Microsoft Corp.’s first research laboratory to be established outside the United States. The lab was set up in July 1997 with three researchers. Today over 100 researchers, mostly from Europe, are engaged in computer research at the lab.

Furthering Science
All Microsoft Research Cambridge projects focus on advancing the state of the art in computing, from increasing programmers’ productivity and helping enterprises operate more efficiently to enriching people’s experiences with technology at work and at home.

Technology Transfer
Nearly every Microsoft product on the market today has been influenced by Microsoft Research. Although most of the researchers pursue long-term goals that extend far beyond the current product cycles, they also work closely with product development groups at Microsoft to help turn research discoveries into deliverable technology.

Research
Research at the Cambridge lab focuses on programming languages, security, information retrieval, machine learning, computer vision, operating systems, networking, and computational biological sciences. No matter how far-reaching or abstract their projects might be, Microsoft researchers consistently strive for results that will eventually provide practical benefit, solving some of the greatest challenges of computer science.

Collaborations
Microsoft Research Cambridge embraces a philosophy of collaboration with academic, government and commercial institutions on a broad range of research programs. Microsoft Research Cambridge maintains close links with universities all over Europe, including the University of Cambridge and its Computer Laboratory, Engineering Department and Statistical Laboratory. Much of the work done at the Cambridge lab can be described as precompetitive research, in which the raw science is still being worked out, before the stage of commercializing particular inventions. Microsoft also contributes by helping university researchers set the research agenda by communicating real-world issues and concerns, and by helping universities ensure they are providing relevant training that prepares students for the job market.

The External Research Office (ERO) was formed in July 2004. Its primary objective is extending the scope of Microsoft Research into key new areas outside core computer science. This is being achieved through new types of strategic public-private collaborative research partnerships with universities, governments and industry partners. The ERO focuses on four main areas of research, including computational biology, computational ecological and environment sciences, natural computation group and information interaction and also drives the Microsoft European Science Initiative.

The Microsoft European Science Initiative is focused on accelerating new kinds of science and computing with the potential to create significant social, technological, scientific and economic change.

The initiative is also contributing to developing tomorrow’s new kinds of scientists that will be vital for Europe’s future in an era of science-based innovation through its industry-leading Ph.D. scholarship program and career development fellowships for outstanding European scientists.

Joint Research Institutes
Microsoft Research has co-founded three research institutes in Europe that serve as centers of excellence in emerging areas of computational science.

• Italy. The Microsoft Research-University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology was established in collaboration with the Italian government and the Provincia Autonoma di Trento, with cultural and scientific contributions from the University of Trento. Research at the institute focuses on computational technology in the converging areas of IT, biotechnology and medicine.
• France. The Microsoft Research-INRIA Joint Centre was founded by INRIA (the French National Research Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics), Microsoft France and Microsoft Research Cambridge. The objective of the institute is to pursue fundamental long-term research in formal methods, software security and the application of computer science research to science.
• Spain. The Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Microsoft Research Centre, based in Barcelona, was inaugurated in January 2008.  This collaborative effort between Microsoft Research Cambridge researchers and experts at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is aimed at accelerating research on multicore processing and software architectures for the advancement of parallel computing research.

For more information, press only:

Rosanna Hill, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, +44 20 7632 3884, rosannah@waggeneredstrom.com

For more information about Microsoft Research:

http://www.research.microsoft.com