{"id":1453,"date":"2013-01-30T09:06:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T09:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/2013\/01\/30\/initiative-celebrates-industry-academia-collaboration\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T07:32:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T14:32:04","slug":"initiative-celebrates-industry-academia-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/blog\/initiative-celebrates-industry-academia-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"Initiative Celebrates Industry-Academia Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Snow fell across the United Kingdom on January 18, 2013, but it was not about to deter some of Microsoft Research’s leading visionaries from making their way from the brand new Cambridge lab down to University College London (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (UCL). They headed to UCL for a special day that would commemorate the deep and long lasting intellectual ties between the two organizations by unveiling a new initiative: beginning this year, Microsoft Research Connections will annually co-sponsor four PhD scholarships at UCL.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"UCL<\/span>
UCL students and Microsoft Research visitors at DemoFest <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

These new scholarships will promote collaborative projects between UCL and Microsoft Research—and build on a history of collaboration in computer and computational sciences, including such major joint projects as 2020 Science (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, with Professor Peter Coveney (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and Resource Reasoning, led by Professor Peter O’Hearn (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. Although UCL is one of England’s oldest universities, it is also one of the most forward-looking, as is evident in the innovative work of its students, researchers, and faculty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"UniversityThe scholarships form part of Microsoft Research Connections’ PhD Scholarship Programme in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (EMEA), which has supported more than 200 doctoral students since its inception in 2004. The highly competitive program supports PhD scholars at research institutions across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in research areas ranging from core computing to biological and social sciences. Recipients receive half of their funding from Microsoft with matching funds from the university. As with all scholarships provided by the PhD Scholarship Programme, the UCL recipients will receive a three-year bursary and invitations to the Microsoft Research annual PhD Summer School in Cambridge, where they will learn about Microsoft Research Cambridge research projects, acquire key transferable skills, and share ideas with Microsoft researchers. All students are supervised by a university faculty member and co-supervised by a Microsoft researcher “champion.” In addition, some students may also be offered an internship at Microsoft Research.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew Blake (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, the laboratory director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, described PhD students as essential to research. He praised their willingness to try out new research projects and observed that “Working with them increases our ability to explore new ideas and contributes to the sustainability of the research lab.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Rick Rashid (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, the chief research officer of Microsoft Research, began the day with an inspiring talk on “Microsoft Research and the Evolution of Computing,” during which he described the growth of Microsoft Research over the past 20 years, regaling the audience with stories of how he has worked with product teams on all manner of projects—some of which have had a huge impact on users across the world. He then fielded questions from students and staff on topics ranging from Microsoft’s strategies on open source, to which developments in the pipeline at Microsoft are the most exciting, to how to manage research successfully.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"UCL<\/span>From left to right: UCL scholarship winners <\/span>Jan Kautz and Sebastian Riedel, Microsoft Research Chief Research Officer Rick Rashid, UCL scholarship winner Jade Alglave, and UCL Vice-Provost of Research David Price (UCL scholarship winner Benny Chain not pictured)<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of his talk, Rick announced the four recipients of PhD scholarship funding and their selected projects:<\/span><\/p>\n