'Sony Research Award Program' Continues in Second Year Promoting Innovation and Technological Development with U.S. and Canadian Universities

SAN DIEGO, July 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony today announced the continuation of the Sony Research Award Program, an academic awards network to provide U.S. and Canadian universities funding for emerging and innovative technology research projects in collaboration with Sony's own research division. Established in 2016, the program fosters relationships between academic institutions and Sony to spearhead advanced research concepts and drive their development. Leading the way in groundbreaking engineering, the program further demonstrates Sony's vision of integrating creativity and innovation.

The Research Award Program comprises two submission categories: Faculty Innovation Award and the Focused Research Award. Both awards will create new opportunities for a faculty to engage and participate in forward-thinking research, leading to the introduction of breakthrough technologies that will help influence future industries and markets.

The Faculty Innovation Award awards up to USD $100,000 to institutions submitting research projects that fall within Sony's current general research interests, spanning a wide number of emerging technology categories including: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Virtual Reality, Autonomous Driving, and Communication.  This award will help Sony catalyze and expand the creation of new concepts, by building on existing research through university partnerships.

The Focused Research Award awards up to USD $150,000 for one year, with the possibility of an extension, to conduct research in the areas of Sony's immediate interest.  Through close collaboration with Sony's own in-house research team, academic faculties can explore new and developing research across a number of themes including: Next Generation Dialogue Management System, Novel Robotic Actuator, Image-based Photo-realistic Rendering, and Egocentric Motion Capture System.

Proposals can be submitted by university Principal Investigators, as well as assistant, associate and full professors. Objectives, publication and patents will be agreed mutually between the awarding institution and Sony.  The deadline for applications is September 15, 2017 and award nominees will be notified around March of 2018.

For more information, please visit to www.sony.com/researchaward.

SOURCE Sony