Sony Research Award Program (Faculty Innovation Award and Focused Research Award)

Sony Research Award Program (Faculty Innovation Award and Focused Research Award) is sponsored by Sony. The Sony Research Award Program provides funding for cutting-edge academic research and fosters collaboration between faculty and Sony researchers.

The program includes both a Faculty Innovation Award and a Focused Research Award, creating opportunities for university faculties and research institutions to engage in pioneering research that could drive new technologies and industries.

SONY RESEARCH AWARD PROGRAM | Research Funding 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. 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.

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).

Audio, Music, Speech, and Language Processing Human Sensing and Interaction Software Development Technology Audio, Music, Speech, and Language Processing Optical Metasurface Design Theory/Framework Internal Mechanisms of Multimodal Generative Models for Content Creation Learning Artistic Deformation Priors Knowledge Representation and Reasoning for Graph-Based Modeling Psychology-Informed User Modeling and Intervention Design for Content Streaming Experiences Post-Training of SpeechLMs for Anime Innovative Visual Technology Powered by AI AI-Based Digital Human Content Creation for Sports Science and Sports Entertainment Provenance Proofs for AI-Generated Derivative Content Long-Term Memory for Sequential Decision-Making in Game Video Understanding Cloud Creation Everywhere Design and Evaluation of an Intermediate Interaction Layer for Integrating Diverse Input/Output Environments 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 submissions from research institutes that are categorized as governmental and Non-profit Organization/Non-Governmental Organization (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 United Kingdom, 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, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the 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, we ask each PI to please not submit identical proposals, and for each PI to not submit more than one proposal for each keyword or focused research theme . Sony will gladly accept an unlimited number of proposals from the same university for the same research topic as long as they each have different PIs.

Note that at the bottom of your submission confirmation email, there is a link to resubmit your proposal in the event that you discover that your original had an error or an omission. Engineering and Physical Sciences Environmental & Life Sciences Electrical and computer engineering