Whether it’s a computer with more memory, a cluster with thousands of cores, a big data platform, an internet of things solution, or open-source machine learning at scale, you can achieve more using the cloud. Microsoft Azure for Research awards offer large allocations of cloud computing for your research project, and already supports hundreds of researchers worldwide across all domains.
Microsoft Azure for Research supports data science innovation through special awards and partnerships with academia and funding agencies that invest in data science. For more details, visit our Data Science program page.
Researchers around the world are using Microsoft Azure to enable them to accelerate their research. Find out more:
ATLAS project
Research scientist uses Microsoft Cloud technology for high-energy physics computing Read more…
University of Cambridge
From cancer to crop genomics — using Research as a Service at the intersection of computers and biology Read more…
University College London
Democratizing AI to improve citizen health Read more…
University of California, Berkeley
A new understanding of the world through grassroots Data Science education at UC Berkeley Read more…
University of Rochester
Overcoming the fear of public speaking using cloud-based technology Read more…
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Predicting floods and improving public safety through Cortana Intelligence Suite Read more…
University of Oxford
Intelligent cloud computing lifts villages out of water poverty Read more…
University of Nottingham
Untangling airports using open source tools on Microsoft Azure Read more…
University of Washington
Saving shellfish harvest by predicting ocean chemistry using Microsoft Azure Read more…
University of Washington Tacoma
Using machine learning and AI to reduce hospital readmissions Read more…
Federal University of Minas Gerais
Cloud computing helps researchers predict traffic jams Read more…
University of Campinas
Understanding cloud forests through the power of cloud computing Read more…
Microsoft Azure can help you do your research better, bigger, and faster. Our awards program provides 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 four weeks. This is an ongoing program, with proposals evaluated every two months.
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.
In addition to our general requests for proposals, we are also interested in proposals with a focus in the following areas:
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:
Step 2: Go to the online submission tool.
Step 3: Submit by the deadline. Proposals are considered in even-numbered months (February, April, June, August, October, and December).
For more details about how to produce a good proposal, see our FAQ.
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.
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. Students can get free access to Azure through our Dreamspark program.
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the Microsoft Azure for Research award program and the proposal submission process.
Proposals are due on the 15th of even-numbered months (February, April, June, August, October, and December).
Different award types represent unique areas of research such as data science, public health or climate research. The submission process and award grants are currently identical, and just select the appropriate program on the menu when submitting your proposal online.
We provide the researcher a specified dollar amount of Azure credits that they can then expend for any of the available Azure services (VMs, Storage, DB, Hadoop, Spark, Containers, etc.). The research grants do not include direct monetary or cash awards.
The Azure for Research awards are intended to allow researchers to learn about, explore, and perform initial viability assessments of the Azure Cloud Services. The awards are not intended to be long-term grants of Azure over multiple years for sustained research computing needs.
The awards are available in all countries in which Azure is available. This list is continually growing. View a country list and the full terms and conditions here.
Your Microsoft account (previously called Windows Live ID) is the combination of an email address and a password that you use to sign in to services like Outlook.com, Skype, OneDrive, or Xbox LIVE. If you don’t have a Microsoft account, it is easy to create one—and it’s free. You can even create a Microsoft account that can be used by your entire research team to access your Azure resources.
The awards are for research projects. Faculty, research staff members, graduate students, and postdocs are qualified to submit proposals. Undergraduate and Masters students require a faculty supervisor to submit a proposal if it part of an ongoing research program.
Unfortunately, this program does not provide Azure for teaching and education.
Proposals are short (a couple of pages), so we are looking for concise descriptions that include the following:.
You do not need to include a CV/resume, previous results, grants, or bibliographic items in your proposal and no special formatting is required. If you are completely unfamiliar with cloud computing and Azure, we recommend that you try our hands-on labs.
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. You can see what is available at Azure Services.
We are looking for projects that will advance the state of research by using Azure. These projects may be individual scientific investigations or activities that support a research discipline by hosting data and data access and analysis services. We are excited by original ideas. We are thrilled by projects that make cloud-based open source tools available to the community. View examples of successful projects on our about tab under ‘Azure in action’.
We are not interested in benchmarking exercises. View examples of successful projects on our about tab under ‘Azure in action’.
Not at all, quite the opposite. Some universities may generate many good proposals that will be funded, creating a community of Azure users in the university.
No, but you may qualify for the BizSpark program.
Yes. If you are uncertain about your qualifications, send email to azurerfp@microsoft.com.
A simple acknowledgment is always appreciated. You can use the following: “Cloud computing resources were provided by a Microsoft Azure for Research award”.
The hands-on labs are intended to familiarize researchers and data scientists with the services Azure offers to aid them in their research, especially with regard to high-performance computing, big-data analysis, and analyzing data streaming from Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.
Our hands-on labs are detailed walk-throughs, and you can download the material and work through it yourself. The labs are available under an open license on the online learning portal. Feel free to re-use this material for your own courses, and please let us know if you are using it.
Watch our online training videos developed to provide a core curriculum for scientists interested in using Microsoft Azure for research. We recommend watching them in sequence from 1 to 6.
Our one-hour, interactive online sessions on Microsoft Azure have been turned into a great webinar video series. The webinars were designed to help you understand the value and capabilities of cloud computing and how you can use it for your research in practical ways.
Interested in Azure Machine Learning? Access tutorials that’ll help with everything from setting up your first predictive analytics experiment, to publishing results, to creating a complete machine learning solution.
We offer a selection of technical papers to help researchers quickly start working with Azure. The papers cover a range of topics from ‘Getting started with Azure’ to ‘Azure Virtual Machines’ to ‘Azure Cloud Services’. Some prior technical computing skills are assumed. Read our technical papers with instructions on using Azure features.
Learn Microsoft Azure from the experts—and at no financial cost to you. These Microsoft Azure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) training courses cover key technical topics for IT pros and developers, including Azure Virtual Machines and virtual networks. In addition, IT pros can gain insight into platform-as-a-service (PaaS) implementation, including using PowerShell for automation and management, using Active Directory, migrating from on-premises to cloud infrastructure, and important licensing information. Enroll in our Azure training courses and discover the advantages of cloud computing with Microsoft Azure.
