Funding, Grants & Awards

Sony Unveils University Research Program

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 08/03/16

Sony is out to woo academia through a new research program that focuses on a broad palette of technology. The company is taking a two-pronged approach to teaming up with North American universities: faculty innovation awards and an annual research award.

The innovation awards, worth up to $100,000, will be given to institutions that submit one-year research projects in any of several areas: artificial intelligence, the internet of things, virtual reality, autonomous driving and robotics.

Annual "focused research awards" will grant up to $150,000 to projects that research specific areas of interest to the company, including: sensor fusion for automotive application, image-based photo-realistic rendering, high-accuracy inertial navigation system and evolving reinforcement learning. Those awards may be extended and could incorporate collaboration with Sony's in-house research teams.

The deadline for submission of both kinds of awards is September 30, 2016. Winners will be announced around the beginning of February 2017. In both cases, researchers will be expected to submit quarterly reports and a final research summary. The company reported that any intellectual property rights are negotiated at the award stage.

To learn more, visit the Sony research award program.