As part of one of the world's most innovative and recognizable brands, we are committed to support university research and innovation in North America, while also fostering partnerships with university faculty and researchers. This Research Award Program provides funding for cutting-edge academic research and helps build a collaborative relationship between faculty and Sony researchers. With awards up to $150,000 per year for each accepted proposal, both the Faculty Innovation Award and Focused Research Award create new opportunities for university faculties to engage in pioneering research that could drive new technologies, industries and the future.
FACULTY INNOVATION AWARD
Global research and development at Sony enables us to foster innovative ideas, which could ultimately lead to future technology advancements and company growth. In order to speed up and expand the creation of new ideas, we would like to partner with universities. This partnership will help cultivate advanced concepts and fertilize our own research and development. The Sony Faculty Innovation Award provides up to $100K USD* in funds.
FOCUSED RESEARCH AWARD
Solid research is the underlying driving force to crystallize fearless creativity and innovation. While we are committed to run in-house research and engineering, we are also excited to collaborate with academic partners to facilitate exploration of new and promising research. The Sony Focused Research Award provides an opportunity for university faculty and Sony to conduct this type of collaborative, focused research. The award provides up to $150K USD* in funds, and may be renewed for subsequent year(s).
Deadline: Sep. 15, 2024
- Sony FACULTY INNOVATION AWARD
- Information Technology
- Affective Computing
- Data Analytics
- Robotics
- Audio, Music, Speech, and Language Processing
- Human Sensing and Interaction
- Security
- Machine Learning
- Systems and Networking
- Communication
- Simulation and Informatics
- Planetary Sensing
- Computer Vision
- Visual/Visualization
- RF Sensing
- Devices and Materials
- Display Device /Optical Beam Steering
- Metasurface/DOE
- Simulation and Informatics
- Sustainable Devices and Materials
- Laser /VCSEL
- Silicon Photonics
- Wireless Power Transfer
- Biomedical and Life Sciences
- Biophotonics
- Cell Biology
- Digital Health
- Information Technology
- Sony FOCUSED RESEARCH AWARD
- Unified Diffusion Modeling for Smart Content Creation
- Long Video Understanding for Highlight Creation Assistance
- Novel Mechanisms and Actuators for Robots
- Physics-based Robotics Simulation
- Multimodal Scene Generation for Content Creation
- Speech Understanding, Processing and Generation on Indian Languages
- Simultaneous Optimization of Process Conditions and Material Specifications for Device Fabrication Using Small Datasets
- Advanced Visual Technology enabled by AI
- AI-based Digital Human Content Creation
- Interactive Experiences with Virtual Agents
- Neural Physics for Engaging Interactive Simulations in Real-Time
- Conversion and Optimization Technology for I/O Information of Various User Interfaces by AI-based Abstraction
We accept applications from Principal Investigators (PIs) who meet the eligibility criteria below.
- PI's institution: PIs must belong to a university, educational institution, or governmental/non-profit research institute. (e.g. we accept submission from research institutes that are categorized as governmental and NPO/NGO in nature index tables).
- PI's position: PIs must be a full-time professor (adjunct professors and adjunct researchers are not eligible) or researcher and be eligible to supervise Ph.D. students at the PI's institution. Full professors, associate professors, and assistant professors are eligible to apply. For the UK, this includes Senior Lecturers, Principal Lecturers, Lecturers, and Readers who are eligible to supervise Ph.D. students at their institutions.
- Countries: The PI’s institution must be in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
A PI or different PIs from the same university/institution may submit more than one proposal for different research topics. However, please do not submit identical proposals more than once.