Funding, Grants & Awards

10 Universities Land Research Grants from Accenture

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 07/07/15

Accenture has provided grants to nearly a dozen universities in an effort to support research and strengthen relationships between its own R&D groups and leading research universities.

"The grant program is part of the Accenture Open Innovation initiative, in which Accenture functions as a bridgemaker between Accenture's Global 2000 clients and the technology innovation ecosystem, which includes universities, top tier accelerators, start-ups, venture capitalists and corporate R&D labs from around the world," according to a news release.

Grant winners include:

• Professor David Bader, of the Georgia Institute of Technology;
• Zhejiang University's Professor Zhejing Bao;
• Professors Michael Bernstein and Melissa Valentine, from Stanford University;
• Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay's Professor Pushpak Bhattacharyya;
• Professor Sutanu Chakraborti, of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras;
• Professor Abhijit Deshmukh, from Purdue University;
• Professors F. Javier Heredia and Joaquim Minguella, of the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona Tech;
• Stanford University's Professor Michal Kosinski;
• University of California, Berkeley's Professor Dean Richard Lyons;
• Professor Santonu Sarkar, of the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences; and
• Professor Partha Pratim Talukdar, of the Indian Institute of Science.

"Universities are a critical source of technical and scientific research that can deliver long-term business benefits for organizations around the world," said Prith Banerjee, managing director of global technology R&D at Accenture, in a prepared statement. "We are thrilled that this grant program, in conjunction with the Accenture Open Innovation initiative, will enable Accenture Technology Labs researchers to translate a university's conceptual research — which spans topics from cyber security to 3D printing and cognitive computing — into ideas that can ultimately help solve real business challenges for our enterprise clients."

"With cyber security threats rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly complex, we are pleased to have received this grant from Accenture to help us advance the research we're doing in the critical area," said Bader, in a news release. "Collaboration with Accenture will provide access to data and expertise that will help us to build proper algorithms, allowing our research to push further and faster than previously possible."