What it is
Cloud computing empowers you to do better, faster and more reproducible research. The Microsoft Azure for Research program provides free cloud computing time, training, and resources to help you achieve more.
Microsoft Azure can help you do your research better, bigger, and faster. Our awards program provides free access to significant amounts of cloud computing resources for a year, so you can easily experiment and scale up your project quickly to achieve more. Submitting a short proposal is easy, and you will receive a decision within just a few weeks. This is an ongoing program, with proposals evaluated every two months.
Who it’s for
Faculty, researchers, and graduate students are qualified to submit proposals for Azure awards for research projects. Masters and undergraduate students require a faculty project supervisor to submit their proposal. The Azure for Education program provides free cloud computing for teaching classes of students.
General requests for proposals
We welcome proposals from researchers in any discipline, and are looking for projects that can take advantage of the cloud to help accelerate their work. Microsoft Azure provides an open, flexible, global platform that supports multiple programming languages, tools, and frameworks including: Linux, Python, Java, Hadoop, and the Microsoft .NET Framework. It offers easy-to-use capabilities for using Hadoop and Spark (HDInsight), Azure Machine Learning (supporting your own Python and R code, as well as Jupyter notebooks), IoT Hub, and stream analytics platforms.
We are especially interested in research proposals that utilize multiple Azure services (ie. Web Apps, Mobile Apps, Data Analytics, Cortana Analytics Services, HPC, etc) as part of their investigation or solution.
Special requests for proposals
In addition to our general requests for proposals, we are also interested in proposals with a focus in the following areas:
- Internet of Things
- Public Health
- Data Science
- Climate Data Initiative
Submit your proposal
We welcome applications from Faculty, researchers, and graduate students affiliated with an academic institution or non-profit research laboratory.
Step 1: Ensure that your proposal meets the following requirements:
Length: Does not exceed three pages in length
Language: Must be written in English
Include: The research problem you are working on and why it is important.
How you will use Microsoft Azure and resource requirement estimates (e.g., number of core, storage requirements) for your project
Title: Proposal titles must begin with the corresponding key phrase for identification purposes
- “Internet of Things”
- “Public Health”
- “Data Science”
- “CDI”
Step 2: Go to the online submission tool which can be found in the "Further official information" link below this article.
Step 3: Submit by the deadline. Proposals are considered in even-numbered months (February, April, June, August, October, and December).
Award program eligibility
To qualify for our awards program, applicants must be affiliated with an academic institution or non-profit research laboratory. In addition to individual investigator projects, we are interested in projects that will support access to services and projects that exemplify valued data to a collaboration or community.
Access Azure resources
In addition to the research awards, there are several other ways to access free Microsoft Azure resources. These include a free 30-day trial available on the Microsoft Azure portal and the MSDN subscription. You may also qualify to use Microsoft Azure for teaching through the Azure in Education program. Students can get free access to Azure through our Dreamspark program.
For more information click Further official information" below.
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/microsoft-azure-for-research/