The External Research group builds partnerships worldwide to advance the research process and its role in innovation.
Microsoft Research believes that collaboration between the public and private sectors, combined with the power of computing, can help researchers as they work to solve the most urgent challenges in medicine, environmental science, engineering, education and many other fields.
That worldwide collaborative research is driven by Microsoft External Research, an arm of the larger Microsoft Research organization, and is designed to complement and augment the work pursued by Microsoft Corp.’s more than 800 researchers.
In partnership with distinguished scientists, researchers, academics and educators, Microsoft External Research is building technologies and services that have the potential to strengthen and accelerate advances in important areas of research. The work is aimed at addressing problems in global health, food and water supplies, natural disasters, and climate research. The goal: to provide scientists, engineers and researchers with technology solutions that enable more time on discovery and less time on data handling and systems management.
Microsoft External Research has a history of supporting groundbreaking research and being an innovation catalyst throughout the world. It has been a part of a number of highly successful, cutting-edge collaborative projects over the years. In fact, in fiscal year 2008, Microsoft External Research supported approximately 400 research projects worldwide. Collaborative research has resulted in projects that run the gamut from the seamless exploration of the universe with the new WorldWide Telescope to the ongoing pursuit of an HIV/AIDS vaccine, among other projects.
Additional research projects include using mass spectrometry in an effort to help save patients, the use of intelligent systems for assisted cognition, building the next generation of computational tools that will enhance the ability of those in the life sciences to understand complex biological systems and help combat diseases, and the use of technology to help enrich the teaching of computer science. Meanwhile, the creation of an open, extensible online platform is facilitating the exchange and sharing of ideas within the research community in Asia.
Microsoft External Research supports long-term initiatives to enhance teaching and learning through the creative use of technologies in curricula such as robotics, Tablet PCs, collaborative technologies, and gaming development to illustrate core concepts and principles of computer science.
- Yogesh Simmhan, Roger Barga, Catharine van Ingen, Ed Lazowska, and Alex Szalay, Building the Trident Scientific Workflow Workbench for Data Management in the Cloud, in International Conference on Advanced Engineering Computing and Applications in Sciences (ADVCOMP), IEEE, October 2009
