Pledging $5.7 million for projects in four areas it is very interested in

Feb 2, 2010 15:28 GMT  ·  By
Google is pledging $5.7 million for university research projects in four areas it is very interested in
   Google is pledging $5.7 million for university research projects in four areas it is very interested in

Google is a huge company that prides itself for being at the front of tech innovation. It has well over 20,000 employees and works on a myriad of new projects, many aimed at markets it doesn't have a presence in or that don't even exist yet. As such, you can imagine that the company has a lot of people in research and invests a significant amount of money in that. Yet, this doesn't seem to be enough as it also relies, to a certain degree, on outside researchers and academics through its grants program. Obviously, it's not the only company giving money to universities, but Google is now ramping up its efforts pledging $5.7 million to a dozen projects.

"We give approximately 150 research grants a year to fund projects across a variety of subjects, we host visiting faculty members here at Google on sabbatical, and last year we started the Google Fellowship Program to fund graduate students doing innovative research in several fields," Alfred Spector, vice president of Research and Special Initiatives, writes on the Google Research blog. "Today, we're announcing the first-ever round of Google Focused Research Awards — funding research in areas of study that are of key interest to Google as well as the research community," he announced.

In this latest wave of grants, Google is focusing on four main areas in which it is, rightfully, very interested: machine learning, the use of mobile phones as data collection devices for public health and environment monitoring, energy efficiency in computing, and privacy. Anyone following Google would know that the company has good reason to fund research in these areas.

The interesting part is that just a few years ago perhaps three out of the four would not have been on Google's agenda. Only recently has the company begun to push in the mobile space, thanks to its Android mobile OS. And privacy is now a big issue at the company, as scrutiny of its business is intensifying, certainly a lot more than even two years ago. Typically the company granted around $50,000 to university researchers. This year though, it's opening up its not so modest wallets by giving anywhere between $100,000 to $1.5 million in funding. Many of the projects are long-term, in the range of two or three years, and all but one university, Cambridge, are from the US.