Introduction

MSR Asia Faculty Specific Projects provide an opportunity to bring together one of MSR Asia's researchers/managers and an academic where there is mutual interest in a project that could have significant impact in the area of Computer Science and could benefit the research community. These projects can be initiated by an individual academic or researcher/manager (or a research group) and facilitated by the University Relations Manager. They can also be initiated by an academic in a university. However it is imperative that an MSRA researcher/manager “sponsors” the project. The project duration is typically 12 months and the project plan submitted by the academic identifies the project impact together with the University and MSRA resources necessary for the project. These projects must demonstrate significant technological breakthroughs and research agreements need to be signed by the academic’s University and by MSRA.

Funding decisions

Funding decisions will be made based on the following consideration/items:

• Mutual interest in the research area
• The successful project will advance the state-of-the-art
• Students’ participation is preferred
• Potential to gain incremental funding from a 3rd party

Best Practices

• Win matching funds from the Australian Government
  The Australian government provides the opportunity for financial support for faculty members in research institutions who wish to undertake research collaboration with industry. Once a faculty member has a financial commitment from an industry partner such as Microsoft to financially support a research project, the academic can apply for matching government funding. In the past 3 years, with help from the local UR manager, MSRA UR has helped Australian academics to get an incremental $872,000 from the Australian Federal Government.
• Seed funding helps to get NSFC big funding
  The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) is a government organization which directs, coordinates and financially supports basic research and applied basic research. In China, there are a couple of cases where young faculty members in universities start with a faculty specific project with researchers in MSRA and finally win significant funding from the NSFC. Two typical examples of this are professor Li Houqiang at University of Science and Technology of China, and Professor Liu Ting at Harbin Institute of Technology.