Academia is home to creative thinkers and the birthplace of much innovation.
 At External Research & Programs (ER&P), we understand the vital role academia
plays in the future of our world. Our purpose is to collaborate with leading
research universities, government agencies, professional organizations and
industry partners to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire
technological innovation, and cultivate the next generation of thought leaders.
In support of this vision, we invest in innovative research. Every year we
publish requests for proposals (RFPs) in specific subject areas and award
software, technical resources and funding — $4 million (U.S.) in 2006 alone
to the most promising researchers. We create joint research institutes and host
academic summits, workshops and symposiums to bring together the leaders of
academic communities. We also award annual fellowships and internships. Through
the Microsoft® Research New Faculty Fellowship program, we award $1
million to five exceptionally talented academic researchers each year.
Through a variety of global and regional programs like these, we support
groundbreaking research in areas as diverse as bioinformatics, environmental
sciences and robotics — fields Microsoft is not typically associated with. We
invite you to explore with us the vast range of disciplines in which, together,
we can partner to improve the quality of people’s lives in every part of the
world.
Sailesh Chutani
Director of External Research & Programs Group
Microsoft Research
Championing Computer Science
Keeping the Discipline Exciting
“Advances
in computing change the way we live, the way we work, the way we learn, the way
we communicate. Advances in computing power our economy and drive advances in
nearly all other fields. Computer science is a field of incredible intellectual
opportunity — the future will be even more exciting than the past.”
— Ed Lazowska,
Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington
Academia and Microsoft have mutual interests in advancing the frontiers of computing
and science, and in cultivating the next generation of computing professionals.
Computing is becoming critical to innovation. To ensure innovation, we need a well-educated,
highly skilled work force, a strong education system, and long-term investments
in research. Unfortunately, we continue to see significant decreases in both the
number of students enrolling in computer science and related disciplines and in
government funding of basic research — a trend that threatens our nation’s global
competitiveness.
From providing testimony on Capitol Hill and exploring ways to broaden the appeal
of computing to women and minorities, to stimulating research in promising directions,
ER&P is finding ways to help address these concerns. We bring together the most
creative research minds at events such as our annual Faculty Summit, invest in talented
individuals through programs such as the Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship
program, and support ongoing collaboration with organizations such as the Computer
Research Association and the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
Research areas and programs:
Pervasive Computing
Moving Beyond the Desktop
“The sensors
will continuously collect environmental data at a scale that was not previously
possible. With these tools, we will obtain unprecedented data, improving our
ability to better estimate the contribution of soil processes to greenhouse
emission.”
— Katalin Szlavecz, Research Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University
As handheld devices and Web-based services extend technology beyond the desktop,
pervasive computing continues to be an important theme in academic research. Our
goal is to help researchers explore the many nontraditional areas of our lives in
which computer technology can be used effectively. We’re helping researchers determine
what pervasive computing systems of the future will look like by asking how users
want to interact with these systems, what the essential attributes of these systems
are, and what kinds of tools developers need to build such systems.
Our work includes an RFP for Accelerating Search in Academic Research, designed
to improve Internet search technologies, as well as data mining, discovery and analysis.
To enable research, 13 awardees have access to MSN® data logs. ER&P also provides
ongoing support for the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland,
where researchers are developing tools that enable users of mobile devices to be
more effective. At Cornell University, we supported the 3D Journal Project, which
focused on developing a sketch-based interface for computer-aided design. Other
projects include a platform for robotics-enhanced computer-science instruction and
a research platform for sensor networks using service-oriented architectures.
Research areas and programs:
Digital Inclusion
Narrowing the Global Technical
Gap
“This project lends a
sense of urgency and legitimacy for rigorous research in a field where, despite
the potential for significant social impact, scholarly work is still patchy. While
the technology perhaps exists to deal with many of the challenges posed by underserved
communities, the problem is that the challenges themselves are terribly ill-defined.”
— Balaji Parthasarathy,
International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, India
Innovation in computing continues to yield dramatic productivity benefits to
individuals, organizations and societies. If computing is made affordable, accessible
and relevant to all communities, including the estimated 4 billion people living
in rural areas and low-income urban environments, the resultant impact would be
significant. However, some tough research problems must be solved to realize that
vision. Rather than retrofitting existing technology to a new and possibly irrelevant
situation, we propose turning the problem upside down and starting from the first
principle: Ask what is relevant and affordable in these emerging economies, and
develop appropriate systems based on the answers to those questions.
In February 2006, ER&P awarded $1.2 million to 17 winners of the Digital Inclusion
RFP to fund academic research that focuses on improving health, education and socioeconomic
conditions worldwide. The winning proposals underscore the diversity of research
we support: development of a bidirectional community radio to promote social and
economic advancement; the use of cell phones as a platform to provide “telemedicine”
in underserved communities; long-distance learning for a village school in Tibet
using networking and audiovisual teaching equipment; and an early flood-warning
system in Honduras using sensor networks.
Technology Solutions
To Improve Teaching and Learning
“In some cases, the pen
is mightier than the keyboard. Chemists and composers, archeologists and artists
— all need pen and paper to create and communicate. We want to help them do their
work digitally — in a way that is as easy and natural as drawing on paper.”
— Andries van Dam, Professor of Computer Science and Director of
Microsoft Center for Research on Pen-Centric Computing, Brown University
ER&P supports a variety of long-term initiatives to enhance teaching and learning
by incorporating technologies such as the Tablet PC, ConferenceXP, gaming and robotics
into the educational environment. We work with faculty to develop innovative curricula
that make learning compelling, relevant and vibrant. Curriculum materials are available
free through the MSDN® Academic Alliance online repository.
The ConferenceXP team helps researchers explore how to make wireless classrooms,
collaboration and distance learning a rich educational environment for students.
In 2006, Australia’s Northern Territory government, through the Department of Employment,
Education and Training, launched its new Interactive Distance Learning system, using
ConferenceXP collaboration technology and the Internet.
We also formed the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE) at Georgia
Institute of Technology. Under the three-year, $1 million partnership, researchers
are developing a teaching platform for beginning computer science programmers and
will evaluate the effectiveness of using robotics technology for teaching. The IPRE
is the fifth such institute Microsoft Research has formed to support academic research.
Another example is the Microsoft Center for Research on Pen-Centric Computing at
Brown University.
Research areas and programs:
Computational Sciences
Partnering to Advance Science
and Computing
“Student-led
design competitions are a powerful tool for modern education and an exciting way
to practice the engineering of biology. We expect an exciting jamboree in
November when participants come to MIT to show off their designs.”
— Randy Rettberg, Director of the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Just as computing transforms the sciences, so the sciences are a rich source
of ideas that will transform computing in the future. Today’s scientific experiments
generate far more data than humans can understand without the use of computing tools,
leading to an increasingly close relationship between computing and basic research.
Scientists are building new tools to store, retrieve and visualize vast quantities
of experimental data, generating insights into problems that were too complex to
study before. Our goal is to enable scientists to develop tools that advance the
state of the art in their areas of research.
Our initiatives in this area focus on bioinformatics
and eScience. Examples of recent projects include the application of machine learning
techniques to the development of vaccines for HIV and the development of new tools
to integrate and analyze data related to metabolic pathways, protein dynamics and
microarrays. In eScience, we support diverse research areas from simulations of
proteins dynamics to prediction of tornadoes. Another example is the International
Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. iGEM, which now includes 38 schools,
enables researchers to explore the potential for engineering complex biological
systems.
Researcher Jaewoo Kang, Ph.D., at North Carolina
State University is pioneering research in the comparison of microarrays, or gene
chips. Microarrays enable researchers to see which genes in a cell are “switched
on.” Developing a technique for comparing literally thousands of microarrays, Kang
hopes to generate new insights into the mechanisms that underlie diseases such as
cancer.
Research areas and programs:
Regional Programs
Keeping the Discipline Exciting
University outreach by Microsoft Research is divided into three geographic regions.
While the goal is identical in these regions — to partner with academia and governments
to foster innovative research, to advance education, and to promote science and
engineering — specific programs are designed to meet regional needs. In addition,
some programs are global and are run by the group in Redmond.
For our region, the focus is on initiatives that advance the state of the art
in computer science and computational sciences, and on the teaching of these disciplines.
The engagement model emphasizes public requests for proposals and active collaboration
with faculty to ensure maximum success for supported projects. The Microsoft Research
lab in Redmond is responsible for this region.
In addition to North America programs, we support the following regional program:
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